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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +OUR VILLAGE BY MARY RUSSELL MITFORD + + + + +CONTENTS + +INTRODUCTION +COUNTRY PICTURES +WALKS IN THE COUNTRY +THE FIRST PRIMROSE +VIOLETING +THE COPSE +THE WOOD +THE DELL +THE COWSLIP-BALL +THE OLD HOUSE AT ABERLEIGH +THE HARD SUMMER +THE SHAW +NUTTING +THE VISIT +HANNAH BINT +THE FALL OF THE LEAF + + + +Introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie + +I. + +There is a great deal of admirable literature concerning Miss +Mitford, so much of it indeed, that the writer of this little notice +feels as if she almost owed an apology to those who remember, for +having ventured to write, on hearsay only, and without having ever +known or ever seen the author of 'Our Village.' And yet, so vivid +is the homely friendly presence, so clear the sound of that voice +'like a chime of bells,' with its hospitable cheery greeting, that +she can scarcely realise that this acquaintance exists only in the +world of the might-have-beens. + +For people who are beginning to remember, rather than looking +forward any more, there certainly exists no more delightful reading +than the memoirs and stories of heroes and heroines, many of whom we +ourselves may have seen, and to whom we may have spoken. As we read +on we are led into some happy bygone region,--such as that one +described by Mr. du Maurier in 'Peter Ibbetson,'--a region in which +we ourselves, together with all our friends and acquaintances, grow +young again;--very young, very brisk, very hopeful. The people we +love are there, along with the people we remember. Music begins to +play, we are dancing, laughing, scampering over the country once +more; our parents too are young and laughing cheerily. Every now +and then perhaps some old friend, also vigorous and hopeful, bursts +into the book, and begins to talk or to write a letter; early sights +and sounds return to us, we have NOW, and we have THEN, in a +pleasant harmony. To those of a certain literary generation who +read Miss Mitford's memoirs, how many such familiar presences and +names must appear and reappear. Not least among them that of her +biographer, Mr. Harness himself, who was so valued by his friends. +Mrs. Kemble, Mrs. Sartoris, Charles Allston Collins, always talked +of him with a great respect and tenderness. I used to think they +had a special voice with which to speak his name. He was never +among our intimate friends, but how familiar to my recollection are +the two figures, that of Mr. Harness and Miss Harness, his sister +and housekeeper, coming together along the busy Kensington roadway. +The brother and sister were like characters out of some book, with +their kind faces, their simple spiritual ways; in touch with so much +that was interesting and romantic, and in heart with so much that +suffered. I remember him with grey hair and a smile. He was not +tall; he walked rather lame; Miss Harness too was little, looking up +at all the rest of the world with a kind round face and sparkling +eyes fringed with thick lashes. Mary Mitford was indeed happy in +her friends, as happy as she was unfortunate in her nearer +relations. + +With much that is sad, there is a great deal of beauty and enjoyment +in Miss Mitford's life. For her the absence of material happiness +was made up for by the presence of warm-hearted sensibility, of +enthusiasm, by her devotion to her parents. Her long endurance and +filial piety are very remarkable, her loving heart carried her +safely to the end, and she found comfort in her unreasoning life's +devotion. She had none of the restlessness which is so apt to spoil +much that might be harmonious; all the charm of a certain unity and +simplicity of motive is hers, 'the single eye,' of which Charles +Kingsley wrote so sweetly. She loved her home, her trees, her +surrounding lanes and commons. She loved her friends. Her books +and flowers are real and important events in her life, soothing and +distracting her from the contemplation of its constant anxieties. +'I may truly say,' she once writes to Miss Barrett, 'that ever since +I was a very young girl, I have never (although for some years +living apparently in affluence) been without pecuniary care,--the +care that pressed upon my thoughts the last thing at night, and woke +in the morning with a dreary sense of pain and pressure, of +something which weighed me to the earth.' + +Mary Russell Mitford was born on the 16th of December 1787. She was +the only child of her parents, who were well connected; her mother +was an heiress. Her father belonged to the Mitfords of the North. +She describes herself as 'a puny child, with an affluence of curls +which made her look as if she were twin sister to her own great +doll.' She could read at three years old; she learnt the Percy +ballads by heart almost before she could read. Long after, she used +to describe how she first studied her beloved ballads in the +breakfast-room lined with books, warmly spread with its Turkey +carpet, with its bright fire, easy chairs, and the windows opening +to a garden full of flowers,--stocks, honeysuckles, and pinks. It +is touching to note how, all through her difficult life, her path +was (literally) lined with flowers, and how the love of them +comforted and cheered her from the first to the very last. In her +saddest hours, the passing fragrance and beauty of her favourite +geraniums cheered and revived her. Even when her mother died she +found comfort in the plants they had tended together, and at the +very last breaks into delighted descriptions of them. + +She was sent to school in the year 1798 to No. 22 Hans Place, to a +Mrs. St. Quintin's. It seems to have been an excellent +establishment. Mary learnt the harp and astronomy; her taste for +literature was encouraged. The young ladies, attired as +shepherdesses, were also taught to skip through many mazy movements, +but she never distinguished herself as a shepherdess. She had +greater success in her literary efforts, and her composition 'on +balloons' was much applauded. She returned to her home in 18O2. +'Plain in figure and in face, she was never common-looking,' says +Mr. Harness. He gives a pretty description of her as 'no ordinary +child, her sweet smiles, her animated conversation, her keen +enjoyment of life, and her gentle voice won the love and admiration +of her friends, whether young or old.' Mr. Harness has chiefly told +Miss Mitford's story in her own words by quotations from her +letters, and, as one reads, one can almost follow her moods as they +succeed each other, and these moods are her real history. The +assiduity of childhood, the bright enthusiasm and gaiety of her +early days, the growing anxiety of her later life, the maturer +judgments, the occasional despairing terrors which came to try her +bright nature, but along with it all, that innocent and enduring +hopefulness which never really deserted her. Her elastic spirit she +owed to her father, that incorrigible old Skimpole. 'I am generally +happy everywhere,' she writes in her youth--and then later on: 'It +is a great pleasure to me to love and to admire, this is a faculty +which has survived many frosts and storms.' It is true that she +adds a query somewhere else, 'Did you ever remark how superior old +gaiety is to new?' she asks. + +Her handsome father, her plain and long-enduring mother, are both +unconsciously described in her correspondence. 'The Doctor's +manners were easy, natural, cordial, and apparently extremely +frank,' says Mr. Harness, 'but he nevertheless met the world on its +own terms, and was prepared to allow himself any insincerity which +seemed expedient. He was not only recklessly extravagant, but +addicted to high play. His wife's large fortune, his daughter's, +his own patrimony, all passed through his hands in an incredibly +short space of time, but his wife and daughter were never heard to +complain of his conduct, nor appeared to admire him less.' + +The story of Miss Mitford's 2O,OOO pounds is unique among the +adventures of authoresses. Dr. Mitford, having spent all his wife's +fortune, and having brought his family from a comfortable home, with +flowers and a Turkey carpet, to a small lodging near Blackfriars +Bridge, determined to present his daughter with an expensive lottery +ticket on the occasion of her tenth birthday. She had a fancy for +No. 2224, of which the added numbers came to 10. This number +actually came out the first prize of 2O,OOO pounds, which money +started the family once more in comparative affluence. Dr. Mitford +immediately built a new square house, which he calls Bertram House, +on the site of a pretty old farmhouse which he causes to be pulled +down. He also orders a dessert-service painted with the Mitford +arms; Mrs. Mitford is supplied with a carriage, and she subscribes +to a circulating library. + +A list still exists of the books taken out by her for her daughter's +use; some fifty-five volumes a month, chiefly trash: 'Vicenza,' 'A +Sailor's Friendship and Soldier's Love,' 'Clarentina,' 'Robert and +Adela,' 'The Count de Valmont,' 'The Three Spaniards,' 'De Clifford' +(in four volumes) and so on. + +The next two or three years were brilliant enough; for the family +must have lived at the rate of three or four thousand a year. Their +hospitality was profuse, they had servants, carriages, they bought +pictures and furniture, they entertained. Cobbett was among their +intimate friends. The Doctor naturally enough invested in a good +many more lottery tickets, but without any further return. + +The ladies seem to take it as a matter of course that he should +speculate and gamble at cards, and indeed do anything and everything +he fancied, but they beg him at least to keep to respectable clubs. +He is constantly away. His daughter tries to tempt him home with +the bloom of her hyacinths. 'How they long to see him again!' she +says, 'how greatly have they been disappointed, when, every day, the +journey to Reading has been fruitless. The driver of the Reading +coach is quite accustomed to being waylaid by their carriage.' Then +she tells him about the primroses, but neither hyacinths nor +primroses bring the Doctor away from his cards. Finally, the +rhododendrons and the azaleas are in bloom, but these also fail to +attract him. + +Miss Mitford herself as she grows up is sent to London more than +once, to the St. Quintin's and elsewhere. She goes to the play and +to Westminster Hall, she sees her hero, Charles James Fox, and has +the happiness of watching him helped on to his horse. Mr. Romilly +delights her, but her greatest favourite of all is Mr. Whitbread. +'You know I am always an enthusiast,' she writes, 'but at present it +is impossible to describe the admiration I feel for this exalted +character.' She speaks of his voice 'which she could listen to with +transport even if he spoke in an unknown language!' she writes a +sonnet to him, 'an impromptu, on hearing Mr. Whitbread declare in +Westminster Hall that he fondly trusted his name would descend to +posterity.' + + 'The hope of Fame thy noble bosom fires, + Nor vain the hope thy ardent mind inspires; + In British breasts whilst Purity remains, + Whilst Liberty her blessed abode retains, + Still shall the muse of History proclaim + To future ages thy immortal name!' + +There are many references to the celebrities of the time in her +letters home,--every one agrees as to the extreme folly of +Sheridan's entertainments, Mrs. Opie is spoken of as a rising +authoress, etc. etc. etc. + +Miss Austen used to go to 23 Hans Place, and Miss Mitford used to +stay at No. 22, but not at the same time. Mrs. Mitford had known +Miss Austen as a child. She may perhaps be forgiven for some +prejudice and maternal jealousy, in her later impressions, but Mary +Mitford admired Jane Austen always with warmest enthusiasm. She +writes to her mother at length from London, describing everything, +all the people and books and experiences that she comes across,--the +elegant suppers at Brompton, the Grecian lamps, Mr. Barker's beauty, +Mr. Plummer's plainness, and the destruction of her purple gown. + +Mrs. Mitford writes back in return describing Reading festivities, +'an agreeable dinner at Doctor Valpy's, where Mrs. Women and Miss +Peacock are present and Mr. J. Simpson, M.P.; the dinner very good, +two full courses and one remove, the soup giving place to one +quarter of lamb.' Mrs. Mitford sends a menu of every dinner she +goes to. + +In 1806 Dr. Mitford takes his daughter, who was then about nineteen, +to the North to visit his relations; they are entertained by the +grandparents of the Trevelyans and the Swinburnes, the Ogles and the +Mitfords of the present day. They fish in Sir John Swinburne's +lake, they visit at Alnwick Castle. Miss Mitford kept her front +hair in papers till she reached Alnwick, nor was her dress +discomposed though she had travelled thirty miles. They sat down, +sixty-five to dinner, which was 'of course' (she somewhat +magnificently says) entirely served on plate. Poor Mary's pleasure +is very much dashed by the sudden disappearance of her father,--Dr. +Mitford was in the habit of doing anything he felt inclined to do at +once and on the spot, quite irrespectively of the convenience of +others,--and although a party had been arranged on purpose to meet +him in the North, and his daughter was counting on his escort to +return home, (people posted in those days, they did not take their +tickets direct from Newcastle to London), Dr. Mitford one morning +leaves word that he has gone off to attend the Reading election, +where his presence was not in the least required. For the first and +apparently for the only time in her life his daughter protests. +'Mr. Ogle is extremely offended; nothing but your immediate return +can ever excuse you to him! I IMPLORE you to return, I call upon +Mamma's sense of propriety to send you here directly. Little did I +suspect that my father, my beloved father, would desert me at this +distance from home! Every one is surprised.' Dr. Mitford was +finally persuaded to travel back to Northumberland to fetch his +daughter. + +The constant companionship of Dr. Mitford must have given a curious +colour to his good and upright daughter's views of life. Adoring +her father as she did, she must have soon accustomed herself to take +his fine speeches for fine actions, to accept his self-complacency +in the place of a conscience. She was a woman of warm impressions, +with a strong sense of right. But it was not within her daily +experience, poor soul, that people who did not make grand +professions were ready to do their duty all the same; nor did she +always depend upon the uprightness, the courage, the self-denial of +those who made no protestations. At that time loud talking was +still the fashion, and loud living was considered romantic. They +both exist among us, but they are less admired, and there is a +different language spoken now to that of Dr. Mitford and his +school.* This must account for some of Miss Mitford's judgments of +what she calls a 'cynical' generation, to which she did little +justice. + +*People nowadays are more ready to laugh than to admire when they +hear the lions bray; for mewing and bleating, the taste, I fear, is +on the increase. + +II. + +There is one penalty people pay for being authors, which is that +from cultivating vivid impressions and mental pictures they are apt +to take fancies too seriously and to mistake them for reality. In +story-telling this is well enough, and it interferes with nobody; +but in real history, and in one's own history most of all, this +faculty is apt to raise up bogies and nightmares along one's path; +and while one is fighting imaginary demons, the good things and true +are passed by unnoticed, the best realities of life are sometimes +overlooked. . . . + +But after all, Mary Russell Mitford, who spent most of her time +gathering figs off thistles and making the best of her difficult +circumstances, suffered less than many people do from the influence +of imaginary things. + +She was twenty-three years old when her first book of poems was +published; so we read in her letters, in which she entreats her +father not to curtail ANY of the verses addressed to him; there is +no reason, she says, except his EXTREME MODESTY why the verses +should be suppressed,--she speaks not only with the fondness of a +daughter but with the sensibility of a poet. Our young authoress is +modest, although in print; she compares herself to Crabbe (as Jane +Austen might have done), and feels 'what she supposes a farthing +candle would experience when the sun rises in all its glory.' Then +comes the Publisher's bill for 59 pounds; she is quite shocked at +the bill, which is really exorbitant! In her next letter Miss +Mitford reminds her father that the taxes are still unpaid, and a +correspondence follows with somebody asking for a choice of the +Doctor's pictures in payment for the taxes. The Doctor is in London +all the time, dining out and generally amusing himself. Everybody +is speculating whether Sir Francis Burdett will go to the Tower.* +'Oh, my darling, how I envy you at the fountain-head of intelligence +in these interesting times! How I envy Lady Burdett for the fine +opportunity she has to show the heroism of our sex!' writes the +daughter, who is only encountering angry tax-gatherers at home. . . +. Somehow or other the bills are paid for the time, and the family +arrangements go on as before. + +*Here, in our little suburban garden at Wimbledon, are the remains +of an old hedgerow which used to grow in the kitchen garden of the +Grange where Sir Francis Burdett then lived. The tradition is that +he was walking in the lane in his own kitchen garden when he was +taken up and carried off to honourable captivity.--A.T.R. + +Besides writing to the members of her own home, Miss Mitford started +another correspondent very early in life; this was Sir William +Elford, to whom she describes her outings and adventures, her visits +to Tavistock House, where her kind friends the Perrys receive her. +Mr. Perry was the editor of the Morning Chronicle; he and his +beautiful wife were the friends of all the most interesting people +of the day. Here again the present writer's own experiences can +interpret the printed page, for her own first sight of London people +and of London society came to her in a little house in Chesham +Place, where her father's old friends, Mrs. Frederick Elliot and +Miss Perry, the daughters of Miss Mitford's friends, lived with a +very notable and interesting set of people, making a social centre, +by that kindly unconscious art which cannot be defined; that quick +apprehension, that benevolent fastidiousness (I have to use rather +far-fetched words) which are so essential to good hosts and +hostesses. A different standard is looked for now, by the rising +generations knocking at the doors, behind which the dignified past +is lying as stark as King Duncan himself! + +Among other entertainments Miss Mitford went to the fetes which +celebrated the battle of Vittoria; she had also the happiness of +getting a good sight of Mme. de Stael, who was a great friend of the +Perrys. 'She is almost as much followed in the gardens as the +Princess,' she says, pouring out her wonders, her pleasures, her +raptures. She begins to read Burns with youthful delight, dilates +upon his exhaustless imagination, his versatility, and then she +suggests a very just criticism. 'Does it not appear' she says, +'that versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare +thing called genius--versatility and playfulness;' then she goes on +to speak of two highly-reputed novels just come out and ascribed to +Lady Morley, 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Sense and Sensibility.' + +She is still writing from Bertram House, but her pleasant gossip +continually alternates with more urgent and less agreeable letters +addressed to her father. Lawyers' clerks are again calling with +notices and warnings, tax-gatherers are troubling. Dr. Mitford has, +as usual, left no address, so that she can only write to the 'Star +Office,' and trust to chance. 'Mamma joins in tenderest love,' so +the letters invariably conclude. + +Notwithstanding the adoration bestowed by the ladies of the family +and their endearing adjectives, Mr. Harness is very outspoken on the +subject of the handsome Doctor! He disliked his manners, his +morals, his self-sufficiency, his loud talk. 'The old brute never +informed his friends of anything; all they knew of him or his +affairs, or whatever false or true he intended them to believe, came +out carelessly in his loose, disjointed talk.' + +In 1814 Miss Mitford is living on still with her parents at Bertram +House, but a change has come over their home; the servants are gone, +the gravel turned to moss, the turf into pasture, the shrubberies to +thickets, the house a sort of new 'ruin half inhabited, and a +Chancery suit is hanging over their heads.' Meantime some news +comes to cheer her from America. Two editions of her poems have +been printed and sold. 'Narrative Poems on the Female Character' +proved a real success. 'All who have hearts to feel and +understandings to discriminate, must wish you health and leisure to +complete your plan,' so write publishers in those golden days, with +complimentary copies of the work. . . . + +Great things are happening all this time; battles are being fought +and won, Napoleon is on his way to St. Helena; London is in a frenzy +of rejoicings, entertainings, illuminations. To Mary Mitford the +appearance of 'Waverley' seems as great an event as the return of +the Bourbons; she is certain that 'Waverley' is written by Sir +Walter Scott, but 'Guy Mannering,' she thinks, is by another hand: +her mind is full of a genuine romantic devotion to books and belles +lettres, and she is also rejoicing, even more, in the spring-time of +1816. Dr. Mitford may be impecunious and their affairs may be +threadbare, but the lovely seasons come out ever in fresh beauty and +abundance. The coppices are carpeted with primroses, with pansies +and wild strawberry blossom,--the woods are spangled with the +delicate flowers of the woodsorrel and wood anemone, the meadows +enamelled with cowslips. . . . Certainly few human beings were ever +created more fit for this present world, and more capable of +admiring and enjoying its beauties, than Miss Mitford, who only +desired to be beautiful herself, she somewhere says, to be perfectly +contented. + +III. + +Most people's lives are divided into first, second and third +volumes; and as we read Miss Mitford's history it forms no exception +to the rule. The early enthusiastic volume is there, with its hopes +and wild judgments, its quaint old-fashioned dress and phraseology; +then comes the second volume, full of actual work and serious +responsibility, with those childish parents to provide for, whose +lives, though so protracted, never seem to reach beyond their +nurseries. Miss Mitford's third volume is retrospective; her +growing infirmities are courageously endured, there is the certainty +of success well earned and well deserved; we realise her legitimate +hold upon the outer world of readers and writers, besides the +reputation which she won upon the stage by her tragedies. + +The literary ladies of the early part of the century in some ways +had a very good time of it. A copy of verses, a small volume of +travels, a few tea-parties, a harp in one corner of the room, and a +hat and feathers worn rather on one side, seemed to be all that was +wanted to establish a claim to fashion and inspiration. They had +footstools to rest their satin shoes upon, they had admirers and +panegyrists to their heart's content, and above all they possessed +that peculiar complacency in which (with a few notable exceptions) +our age is singularly deficient. We are earnest, we are audacious, +we are original, but we are not complacent. THEY were dolls +perhaps, and lived in dolls' houses; WE are ghosts without houses at +all; we come and go wrapped in sheets of newspaper, holding +flickering lights in our hands, paraffin lamps, by the light of +which we are seeking our proper sphere. Poor vexed spirits! We do +not belong to the old world any more! The new world is not yet +ready for us. Even Mr. Gladstone will not let us into the House of +Commons; the Geographical Society rejects us, so does the Royal +Academy; and yet who could say that any of their standards rise too +high! Some one or two are happily safe, carried by the angels of +the Press to little altars and pinnacles all their own; but the +majority of hard-working, intelligent women, 'contented with little, +yet ready for more,' may they not in moments of depression be +allowed to picture to themselves what their chances might have been +had they only been born half a century earlier? + +Miss Mitford, notwithstanding all her troubles (she has been known +to say she had rather be a washerwoman than a literary lady), had +opportunities such as few women can now obtain. One is lost in +admiration at the solidity of one's grandparents' taste, when one +attempts to read the tragedies they delighted in, and yet 'Rienzi' +sold four thousand copies and was acted forty-five times; and at one +time Miss Mitford had two tragedies rehearsed upon the boards +together; one at Covent Garden and one at Drury Lane, with Charles +Kemble and Macready disputing for her work. Has not one also read +similar descriptions of the triumphs of Hannah More, or of Johanna +Baillie; cheered by enthusiastic audiences, while men shed tears.* + +*Mem. Hannah More, v.i. p.124. + +'Julian' was the first of Miss Mitford's acted plays. It was +brought out at Covent Garden in 1823, when she was thirty-six years +old; Macready played the principal part. 'If the play do reach the +ninth night,' Miss Mitford writes to Macready, 'it will be a very +complete refutation of Mr. Kemble's axiom that no single performer +can fill the theatre; for except our pretty Alfonso (Miss Foote) +there is only Julian, one and only one. Let him imagine how deeply +we feel his exertions and his kindness.*. . .' + +*In Macready's diary we find an entry which is not over gracious. +'"Julian" acted March the 15th. Had but moderate success. The C. +G. company was no longer equal to the support of plays containing +moral characters. The authoress in her dedication to me was profuse +in her acknowledgments and compliments, but the performance made +little impression, and was soon forgotten.' + +'Julian' was stopped on the eighth night, to her great +disappointment, but she is already engaged on another--on several +more---tragedies; she wants the money badly; for the editor of her +magazine has absconded, owing her 50 pounds. Some trying and +bewildering quarrel then ensues between Charles Kemble and Macready, +which puts off her tragedies, and sadly affects poor Miss Mitford's +nerves and profits. She has one solace. Her father, partly +instigated, she says, by the effect which the terrible feeling of +responsibility and want of power has had upon her health and +spirits, at last resolves to try if he can HIMSELF obtain any +employment that may lighten the burthen of the home. It is a good +thing that Dr. Mitford has braced himself to this heroic +determination. 'The addition of two or even one hundred a year to +our little income, joined to what I am, in a manner, sure of gaining +by mere industry, would take a load from my heart of which I can +scarcely give you an idea. . . even "Julian" was written under a +pressure of anxiety which left me not a moment's rest. . . .' So +she fondly dwells upon the delightful prospects. Then comes the +next letter to Sir William Elford, and we read that her dear father, +'relying with a blessed sanguineness on my poor endeavours, has not, +I believe, even inquired for a situation, and I do not press the +matter, though I anxiously wish it; being willing to give one more +trial to the theatre.' + +On one of the many occasions when Miss Mitford writes to her trustee +imploring him to sell out the small remaining fragment of her +fortune, she says, 'My dear father has, years ago, been improvident, +is still irritable and difficult to live with, but he is a person of +a thousand virtues. . . there are very few half so good in this +mixed world; it is my fault that this money is needed, entirely my +fault, and if it be withheld, my dear father will be overthrown, +mind and body, and I shall never know another happy hour.' + +No wonder Mr. Harness, who was behind the scenes, remonstrated +against the filial infatuation which sacrificed health, sleep, peace +of mind, to gratify every passing whim of the Doctor's. At a time +when she was sitting up at night and slaving, hour after hour, to +earn the necessary means of living, Dr. Mitford must needs have a +cow, a stable, and dairy implements procured for his amusement, and +when he died he left 1,000 pounds of debts for the scrupulous woman +to pay off. She is determined to pay, if she sells her clothes to +do so. Meanwhile, the Doctor is still alive, and Miss Mitford is +straining every nerve to keep him so. She is engaged (in strict +confidence) on a grand historical subject, Charles and Cromwell, the +finest episode in English history, she says. Here, too, fresh +obstacles arise. This time it is the theatrical censor who +interferes. It would be dangerous for the country to touch upon +such topics; Mr. George Colman dwells upon this theme, although he +gives the lady full credit for no evil intentions; but for the +present all her work is again thrown away. While Miss Mitford is +struggling on as best she can against this confusion of worries and +difficulty (she eventually received 2OO pounds for 'Julian' from a +Surrey theatre), a new firm 'Whittaker' undertakes to republish the +'village sketches' which had been written for the absconding editor. +The book is to be published under the title of 'Our Village.' + +IV. + +'Are your characters and descriptions true?' somebody once asked our +authoress. 'Yes, yes, yes, as true, as true as is well possible,' +she answers. 'You, as a great landscape painter, know that in +painting a favourite scene you do a little embellish and can't help +it; you avail yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere; if anything +be ugly you strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. +But still the picture is a likeness.' + +So wrote Miss Mitford, but with all due respect for her and for Sir +William Elford, the great landscape painter, I cannot help thinking +that what is admirable in her book, are not her actual descriptions +and pictures of intelligent villagers and greyhounds, but the more +imaginative things; the sense of space and nature and progress which +she knows how to convey; the sweet and emotional chord she strikes +with so true a touch. Take at hazard her description of the sunset. +How simple and yet how finely felt it is. Her genuine delight +reaches us and carries us along; it is not any embellishing of +effects, or exaggeration of facts, but the reality of a true and +very present feeling. . . 'The narrow line of clouds which a few +minutes ago lay like long vapouring streaks along the horizon, now +lighted with a golden splendour, that the eye can scarcely endure; +those still softer clouds which floated above, wreathing and curling +into a thousand fantastic forms as thin and changeful as summer +smoke, defined and deepened into grandeur, and hedged with +ineffable, insufferable light. Another minute and the brilliant orb +totally disappears and the sky above grows, every moment, more +varied and more beautiful, as the dazzling golden lines are mixed +with glowing red and gorgeous purple, dappled with small dark +specks, and mingled with such a blue as the egg of the hedge- +sparrow. . . . To look up at that glorious sky, and then to see +that magnificent picture reflected in the clear and lovely Loddon +water, is a pleasure never to be described, and never to be +forgotten. My heart swells, and my eyes fill as I write of it, and +think of the immeasurable majesty of nature and the unspeakable +goodness of God, who has spread an enjoyment so pure, so peaceful, +and so intense before the meanest and lowliest of His creatures.' + +But it is needless now to go on praising 'Our Village,' or to +recount what a success was in store for the little book. Certain +books hold their own by individual right and might; they are part of +everybody's life as a matter of course. They are not always read, +but they tacitly take their place among us. The editions succeeded +editions here and in America; artists came down to illustrate the +scenes. Miss Mitford, who was so delighted with the drawings by Mr. +Baxter, should have lived to see the charming glimpses of rural life +we owe to Mr. Thomson. 'I don't mind 'em,' says Lizzy to the cows, +as they stand with spirited bovine grace behind the stable door. +'Don't mind them indeed!' + +I think the author would assuredly have enjoyed the picture of the +baker, the wheelwright and the shoemaker, each following his special +Alderney along the road to the village, or of the farmer driving his +old wife in the gig. . . . One design, that of the lady in her +pattens, comes home to the writer of these notes, who has perhaps +the distinction of being the only authoress now alive who has ever +walked out in pattens. At the age of seven years she was provided +with a pair by a great-great-aunt, a kind old lady living at +Fareham, in Hampshire, where they were still in use. How +interesting the little circles looked stamped upon the muddy road, +and how nearly down upon one's nose one was at every other step! + +But even with all her success, Miss Mitford was not out of her +troubles. She writes to Mr. Harness saying: 'You cannot imagine +how perplexed I am. There are points in my domestic situation too +long and too painful to write about; the terrible improvidence of +one dear parent, the failure of memory and decay of faculty in that +other who is still dearer, cast on me a weight of care and fear that +I can hardly bear up against.' Her difficulties were unending. The +new publisher now stopped payment, so that even 'Our Village' +brought in no return for the moment; Charles Kemble was unable to +make any offer for 'Foscari.' She went up to town in the greatest +hurry to try and collect some of the money owing to her from her +various publishers, but, as Mr. Harness says, received little from +her debtors beyond invitations and compliments. She meditates a +novel, she plans an opera, 'Cupid and Psyche.' + +At last, better times began to dawn, and she receives 150 pounds +down for a new novel and ten guineas from Blackwood as a retaining +fee. Then comes a letter from Charles Kemble giving her new hope, +for her tragedy, which was soon afterwards produced at Covent +Garden. + +The tragedies are in tragic English, of course that language of the +boards, but not without a simplicity and music of their own. In the +introduction to them, in some volumes published by Hurst and Blacket +in 1854, Miss Mitford describes 'the scene of indescribable chaos +preceding the performance, the vague sense of obscurity and +confusion; tragedians, hatted and coated, skipping about, chatting +and joking; the only very grave person being Liston himself. +Ballet-girls walking through their quadrilles to the sound of a +solitary fiddle, striking up as if of its own accord, from amid the +tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra, and piercing, one +hardly knew how, through the din that was going on incessantly. Oh, +that din! Voices from every part; above, below, around, and in +every key. Heavy weights rolling here and falling there. Bells +ringing, one could not tell why, and the ubiquitous call-boy +everywhere.' + +She describes her astonishment when the play succeeds. 'Not that I +had nerve enough to attend the first representation of my tragedies. +I sat still and trembling in some quiet apartment near, and thither +some friend flew to set my heart at ease. Generally the messenger +of good tidings was poor Haydon, whose quick and ardent spirit lent +him wings on such an occasion.' + +We have the letter to her mother about 'Foscari,' from which I have +quoted; and on the occasion of the production of 'Rienzi' at Drury +Lane (two years later in October 1828), the letter to Sir William +Elford when the poor old mother was no longer here to rejoice in her +daughter's success. + +Miss Mitford gratefully records the sympathy of her friends, the +warm-hearted muses of the day. Mrs. Trollope, Miss Landon, Miss +Edgeworth, Miss Porden, Mrs. Hofland, Mrs. Opie, who all appear with +their congratulations. + +Miss Mitford says that Haydon, above all, sympathised with her love +for a large canvas. The Classics, Spain, Italy, Mediaeval Rome, +these are her favourite scenes and periods. Dukes and tribunes were +her heroes; daggers, dungeons, and executioners her means of +effects. + +She moralises very sensibly upon Dramatic success. 'It is not,' she +says, 'so delicious, so glorious, so complete a gratification as, in +our secret longings, we all expect. It does not fill the heart,--it +is an intoxication followed by a dismal reaction.' She tells a +friend that never in all her life was she so depressed and out of +spirits as after 'Rienzi,' her first really successful venture. But +there is also a passing allusion to her father's state of mind, to +his mingled irritation and sulkiness, which partly explains things. +Could it be that the Doctor added petty jealousy and envy to his +other inconvenient qualities? His intolerance for any author or +actor, in short, for any one not belonging to a county family, his +violent annoyance at any acquaintances such as those which she now +necessarily made, would naturally account for some want of spirits +on the daughter's part; overwrought, over-taxed, for ever on the +strain, her work was exhausting indeed. The small pension she +afterwards obtained from the Civil List must have been an +unspeakable boon to the poor harassed woman. + +Tragedy seems to have resulted in a substantial pony and a basket +carriage for Miss Mitford, and in various invitations (from the +Talfourds, among the rest) during which she is lionised right and +left. It must have been on this occasion that Serjeant Talfourd +complained so bitterly of a review of 'Ion' which appeared about +that time. His guest, to soothe him, unwarily said, 'she should not +have minded such a review of HER Tragedy.' + +'YOUR "Rienzi," indeed! I should think not,' says the serjeant. +'"Ion" is very different.' The Talfourd household, as it is +described by Mr. Lestrange, is a droll mixture of poetry and prose, +of hospitality, of untidiness, of petulance, of most genuine +kindness and most genuine human nature. + +There are also many mentions of Miss Mitford in the 'Life of +Macready' by Sir F. Pollock. The great tragedian seems not to have +liked her with any cordiality; but he gives a pleasant account of a +certain supper-party in honour of 'Ion' at which she is present, and +during which she asks Macready if he will not now bring out her +tragedy. The tragedian does not answer, but Wordsworth, sitting by, +says, 'Ay, keep him to it.' + +V. + +Besides the 'Life of Miss Mitford' by Messrs. Harness and Lestrange, +there is also a book of the 'Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford,' +consisting of the letters she received rather than of those which +she wrote. It certainly occurs to one, as one looks through the +printed correspondence of celebrated people, how different are +written from printed letters. Your friend's voice sounds, your +friend's eyes look out, of the written page, even its blots and +erasures remind you of your human being. But the magnetism is gone +out of these printer's lines with their even margins; in which +everybody's handwriting is exactly alike; in which everybody uses +the same type, the same expressions; in which the eye roams from +page to page untouched, unconvinced. I can imagine the pleasure +each one of these letters may have given to Miss Mitford to receive +in turn. They come from well-known ladies, accustomed to be +considered. Mrs. Trollope, Mrs. Hofland, Mrs. Howitt, Mrs. S. C. +Hall, Miss Strickland, Mrs. Opie; there, too, are Miss Barrett and +Mrs. Jamieson and Miss Sedgwick who writes from America; they are +all interesting people, but it must be confessed that the +correspondence is not very enlivening. Miss Barrett's is an +exception, that is almost as good as handwriting to read. But there +is no doubt that compliments to OTHER authoresses are much less +amusing, than those one writes or receives oneself; apologies also +for not writing sooner, CAN pall upon one in print, however soothing +they may be to the justly offended recipient, or to the +conscience-stricken correspondent. + +'I must have seemed a thankless wretch, my dear Miss Mitford,' etc. +etc. 'You, my dear friend, know too well what it is to have to +finish a book, to blame my not attempting,' etc. etc. 'This is the +thirty-ninth letter I have written since yesterday morning,' says +Harriet Martineau. 'Oh, I can scarcely hold the pen! I will not +allow my shame for not having written, to prevent me from writing +now.' All these people seem to have been just as busy as people are +now, as amusing, as tiresome. They had the additional difficulty of +having to procure franks, and of having to cover four pages instead +of a post-card. OUR letters may be dull, but at all events they are +not nearly so long. We come sooner to the point and avoid elegant +circumlocutions. But one is struck, among other things, by the +keener literary zest of those days, and by the immense numbers of +MSS. and tragedies in circulation, all of which their authors +confidingly send from one to another. There are also whole flights +of travelling poems flapping their wings and uttering their cries as +they go. + +An enthusiastic American critic who comes over to England emphasises +the situation. Mr. Willis's 'superlative admiration' seems to give +point to everything, and to all the enthusiasm. Miss Austen's +Collins himself could not have been more appreciative, not even if +Miss de Burgh had tried her hand at a MS. . . . Could he--Mr. +Willis--choose, he would have tragedy once a year from Miss +Mitford's pen. 'WHAT an intoxicating life it is,' he cries; 'I met +Jane Porter and Miss Aikin and Tom Moore and a troop more beaux +esprits at dinner yesterday! I never shall be content elsewhere.' + +Miss Mitford's own letters speak in a much more natural voice. + +'I never could understand what people could find to like in my +letters,' Miss Mitford writes, 'unless it be that they have a ROOT +to them.' The root was in her own kind heart. Miss Mitford may +have been wanting a little in discrimination, but she was never +wanting in sympathy. She seems to have loved people for kindness's +sake indiscriminately as if they were creations of her own brain: +but to friendliness or to trouble of any sort she responds with +fullest measure. Who shall complain if some rosy veil coloured the +aspects of life for her? + +'Among the many blessings I enjoy,--my dear father, my admirable +mother, my tried and excellent friends,--there is nothing for which +I ought to thank God so earnestly as for the constitutional buoyancy +of spirits, the aptness to hope, the will to be happy WHICH I +INHERIT FROM MY FATHER,' she writes. Was ever filial piety so +irritating as hers? It is difficult to bear, with any patience, her +praises of Dr. Mitford. His illusions were no less a part of his +nature than his daughter's, the one a self-centred absolutely +selfish existence, the other generous, humble, beautiful. She is +hardly ever really angry except when some reports get about +concerning her marriage. There was an announcement that she was +engaged to one of her own clan, and the news spread among her +friends. The romantic Mrs. Hofland had conjured up the suggestion, +to Miss Mitford's extreme annoyance. It is said Mrs. Hofland also +married off Miss Edgeworth in the same manner. + +Mary Mitford found her true romance in friendship, not in love. One +day Mr. Kenyon came to see her while she was staying in London, and +offered to show her the Zoological Gardens, and on the way he +proposed calling in Gloucester Place to take up a young lady, a +connection of his own, Miss Barrett by name. It was thus that Miss +Mitford first made the acquaintance of Mrs. Browning, whose +friendship was one of the happiest events of her whole life. A +happy romance indeed, with that added reality which must have given +it endurance. And indeed to make a new friend is like learning a +new language. I myself have a friend who says that we have each one +of us a chosen audience of our own to whom we turn instinctively, +and before whom we rehearse that which is in our minds; whose +opinion influences us, whose approval is our secret aim. All this +Mrs. Browning seems to have been to Miss Mitford. + +'I sit and think of you and of the poems that you will write, and of +that strange rainbow crown called fame, until the vision is before +me. . . . My pride and my hopes seem altogether merged in you. At +my time of life and with so few to love, and with a tendency to body +forth images of gladness, you cannot think what joy it is to +anticipate. . . .' So wrote the elder woman to the younger with +romantic devotion. What Miss Mitford once said of herself was true, +hers was the instinct of the bee sucking honey from the hedge +flower. Whatever sweetness and happiness there was to find she +turned to with unerring directness. + +It is to Miss Barrett that she sometimes complains. 'It will help +you to understand how impossible it is for me to earn money as I +ought to do, when I tell you that this very day I received your dear +letter and sixteen others; then my father brought into my room the +newspaper to hear the ten or twelve columns of news from India; then +I dined and breakfasted in one; then I got up, and by that time +there were three parties of people in the garden; eight others +arrived soon after. . . . I was forced to leave, being engaged to +call on Lady Madeline Palmer. She took me some six miles on foot in +Mr. Palmer's beautiful plantations, in search of that exquisite +wild-flower the bog-bean, do you know it? most beautiful of flowers, +either wild--or, as K. puts it,--"tame." After long search we found +the plant not yet in bloom.' + +Dr. Mitford weeps over his daughters exhaustion, telling everybody +that she is killing herself by her walks and drives. He would like +her never to go beyond the garden and beyond reach of the columns of +his newspaper. She declares that it is only by getting out and +afield that she can bear the strain and the constant alternation of +enforced work and anxiety. Nature was, indeed, a second nature to +her. Charles Kingsley himself could scarcely write better of the +East wind. . . . + +'We have had nine weeks of drought and east wind, scarcely a flower +to be seen, no verdure in the meadows, no leaves in the hedgerows; +if a poor violet or primrose did make its appearance it was +scentless. I have not once heard my aversion the cuckoo. . . and +in this place, so evidently the rendezvous of swallows, that it +takes its name from them, not a swallow has yet appeared. The only +time that I have heard the nightingale, I drove, the one mild day we +have had, to a wood where I used to find the woodsorrel in beds; +only two blossoms of that could be found, but a whole chorus of +nightingales saluted me the moment I drove into the wood.' + +There is something of Madame de Sevigne in her vivid realisation of +natural things. + +She nursed her father through a long and trying illness, and when he +died found herself alone in the world with impaired health and very +little besides her pension from the Civil List to live upon. Dr. +Mitford left 1000 pounds worth of debts, which this honourable woman +then and there set to work to try and pay. So much courage and +devotion touched the hearts of her many friends and readers, and +this sum was actually subscribed by them. Queens, archbishops, +dukes, and marquises subscribe to the testimonial, so do the +literary ladies, Mesdames Bailey, Edgeworth, Trollope; Mrs. Opie is +determined to collect twenty pounds at least, although she justly +says she wishes it were for anything but to pay the Doctor's debts. + +In 1844 it is delightful to read of a little ease at last in this +harassed life; of a school-feast with buns and flags organised by +the kind lady, the children riding in waggons decked with laurel, +Miss Mitford leading the way, followed by eight or ten neighbouring +carriages, and the whole party waiting in Swallowfield Lane to see +the Queen and Prince Albert returning from their visit to the Duke +of Wellington. 'Our Duke went to no great expense,' says Miss +Mitford. (Dr. Mitford would have certainly disapproved had he been +still alive.) One strip of carpet the Duke did buy, the rest of the +furniture he hired in Reading for the week. The ringers, after +being hard at work for four hours, sent a can to the house to ask +for some beer, and the can was sent back empty. + +It was towards the end of her life that Miss Mitford left Three Mile +Cross and came to Swallowfield to stay altogether. 'The poor +cottage was tumbling around us, and if we had stayed much longer we +should have been buried in the ruins,' she says; 'there I had toiled +and striven and tasted as bitterly of bitter anxiety, of fear and +hope, as often falls to the lot of women.' Then comes a charming +description of the three miles of straight and dusty road. 'I +walked from one cottage to the other on an autumn evening when the +vagrant birds, whose habit of assembling there for their annual +departure, gives, I suppose, its name of Swallowfield to the +village, were circling over my head, and I repeated to myself the +pathetic lines of Hayley as he saw those same birds gathering upon +his roof during his last illness:-- + + '"Ye gentle birds, that perch aloof, + And smooth your pinions on my roof. . . + + '"Prepare for your departure hence + Ere winter's angry threats commence; + Like you my soul would smooth her plume + For longer flights beyond the tomb. + + '"May God by whom is seen and heard + Departing men and wandering bird, + In mercy mark us for His own + And guide us to the land unknown!"' + +Thoughts soothing and tender came with those touching lines, and +gayer images followed. . . . + +It is from Swallowfield that she writes: 'I have fell this blessing +of being able to respond to new friendships very strongly lately, +for I have lost many old and valued connections during this trying +spring. I thank God far more earnestly for such blessings than for +my daily bread, for friendship is the bread of the heart.' + +It was late in life to make such warm new ties as those which +followed her removal from Three Mile Cross; but some of the most +cordial friendships of her life date from this time. Mr. James Payn +and Mr. Fields she loved with some real motherly feeling, and Lady +Russell who lived at the Hall became her tender and devoted friend. + +VI. + +We went down to Reading the other day, as so many of Miss Mitford's +friends have done before, to look at 'our village' with our own +eyes, and at the cottage in which she lived for so long. A phaeton +with a fast-stepping horse met us at the station and whirled us +through the busy town and along the straight dusty road beyond it. +As we drove along in the soft clouded sunshine I looked over the +hedges on either side, and I could see fields and hedgerows and red +roofs clustering here and there, while the low background of blue +hills spread towards the horizon. It was an unpretentious homely +prospect intercepted each minute by the detestable advertisement +hoardings recommending this or that rival pill. 'Tongues in trees' +indeed, in a very different sense from the exiled duke's experience! +Then we come within sight of the running brook, uncontaminated as +yet; the river flowing cool and swift, without quack medicines +stamped upon its waters: we reach Whitley presently, with its +pretty gabled hostel (Mrs. Mitford used to drive to Whitley and back +for her airing), the dust rises on the fresh keen wind, the scent of +the ripe corn is in the air, the cows stoop under the elm trees, +looking exactly as they do in Mr. Thomson's pretty pictures, dappled +and brown, with delicate legs and horns. We pass very few people, a +baby lugged along in its cart, and accompanied by its brothers and +sisters; a fox-terrier comes barking at our wheels; at last the +phaeton stops abruptly between two or three roadside houses, and the +coachman, pointing with his whip, says, 'That is "The Mitford," +ma'am.--That's where Miss Mitford used to live!' + +Was that all? I saw two or three commonplace houses skirting the +dusty road, I saw a comfortable public-house with an elm tree, and +beside it another grey unpretentious little house, with a slate roof +and square walls, and an inscription, 'The Mitford,' painted over +the doorway. . . . + +I had been expecting I knew not what; a spire, a pump, a green, a +winding street: my preconceived village in the air had immediately +to be swept into space, and in its stead, behold the inn with its +sign-post, and these half-dozen brick tenements, more or less cut to +one square pattern! So this was all! this was 'our village' of +which the author had written so charmingly! These were the sights +the kind eyes had dwelt upon, seeing in them all, the soul of hidden +things, rather than dull bricks and slates. Except for one memory, +Three Mile Cross would seem to be one of the dullest and most +uninteresting of country places. . . . + +But we have Miss Mitford's own description. 'The Cross is not a +borough, thank Heaven, either rotten or independent. The +inhabitants are quiet, peaceable +people who would not think of visiting us, even if we had a knocker +to knock at. Our residence is a cottage' (she is writing to her +correspondent, Sir William Elford), 'no, not a cottage, it does not +deserve the name--a messuage or tenement such as a little farmer who +had made 1400 pounds might retire to when he left off business to +live on his means. It consists of a series of closets, the largest +of which may be about eight feet square, which they call parlours +and kitchens and pantries, some of them minus a corner, which has +been unnaturally filched for a chimney, others deficient in half a +side, which has been truncated by a shelving roof. Behind is a +garden about the size of a good drawing-room, with an arbour, which +is a complete sentry-box of privet. On one side a public-house, on +the other a village shop, and right opposite a cobbler's stall. +Notwithstanding all this "the cabin," as Boabdil says, "is +convenient." It is within reach of my dear old walks, the banks +where I find my violets, the meadows full of cowslips, and the woods +where the woodsorrel blows. . . . Papa has already had the +satisfaction of setting the neighbourhood to rights and committing a +disorderly person who was the pest of "The Cross" to Bridewell. . . +. Mamma has furbished up an old dairy; I have lost my only key and +stuffed the garden with flowers.' . . . . So writes the contented +young woman. + +How much more delightful is all this than any commonplace stagey +effect of lattice and gable; and with what pleasant unconscious art +the writer of this letter describes what is NOT there and brings in +her banks of violets to perfume the dull rooms. The postscript to +this letter is Miss Mitford all over. 'Pray excuse my blots and +interlineations. They have been caused by my attention being +distracted by a nightingale in full song who is pouring a world of +music through my window.' + +'Do you not like to meet with good company in your friends' hearts?' +Miss Mitford says somewhere,--to no one better than to herself does +this apply. Her heart was full of gracious things, and the best of +company was ever hers, 'La fleur de la hotte,' as Madame de Sevigne +says. + +We walked into the small square hall where Dr. Mitford's bed was +established after his illness, whilst visitors and all the rest of +the household came and went through the kitchen door. In the +parlour, once kept for his private use, now sat a party of homely +friends from Reading, resting and drinking tea: we too were served +with smoking cups, and poured our libation to her who once presided +in the quiet place; and then the landlady took us round and about, +showed us the kitchen with its comfortable corners and low +window-frames--'I suppose this is scarcely changed at all?' said one +of us. + +'Oh yes, ma'am,' says the housekeeper--'WE uses a Kitchener, Miss +Mitford always kept an open range.' + +The garden, with its sentry-box of privet, exists no longer; an iron +mission-room stands in its place, with the harmonium, the rows of +straw chairs, the table and the candlesticks de circonstance. Miss +Mitford's picture hangs on the wall, a hand-coloured copy of one of +her portraits. The kindly homely features smile from the oils, in +good humour and attentive intelligence. The sentiment of to-day is +assuredly to be found in the spirit of things rather than in their +outward signs. . . . Any one of us can feel the romance of a +wayside shrine put up to the memory of some mediaeval well-dressed +saint with a nimbus at the back of her head, and a trailing cloak +and veil. . . . Here, after all, is the same sentiment, only +translated into nineteenth-century language; uses corrogated iron +sheds, and cups of tea, and oakum matting. 'Mr. Palmer, he bought +the place,' says the landlady, 'he made it into a Temperance Hotel, +and built the Temperance Hall in the garden.' . . . . + +No romantic marble shrine, but a square meeting-house of good +intent, a tribute not less sincere because it is square, than if it +were drawn into Gothic arch and curve. It speaks, not of a holy and +mythical saint, but of a good and warm-hearted woman; of a life-long +penance borne with charity and cheerfulness; of sweet fancies and +blessings which have given innocent pleasure to many generations! + +VII. + +There is a note, written in a close and pretty writing, something +between Sir Walter Scott's and Mrs. Browning's, which the present +writer has possessed for years, fastened in a book among other early +treasures:-- + +Thank you, dearest Miss Priscilla, for your great kindness. I +return the ninth volume of [illegible], with the four succeeding +ones, all that I have; probably all that are yet published. You +shall have the rest when I get them. Tell dear Mr. George (I must +not call him Vert-Vert) that I have recollected the name of the +author of the clever novel 'Le Rouge et le Noir' (that is the right +title of the book, which has nothing to do with the name); the +author's name is Stendhal, or so he calls himself. I think that he +was either a musician or a musical critic, and that he is dead. . . +. My visitor has not yet arrived (6 o'clock, p.m.), frightened no +doubt by the abruptness of the two notes which I wrote in reply to +hers yesterday morning; and indeed nobody could fancy the hurry in +which one is forced to write by this walking post. . . . + +Tell my visitors of yesterday with my kind love that they did me all +the good in the world, as indeed everybody of your house does.-- +Ever, dear Miss Priscilla, very affectionately yours, + M. R. MITFORD. + +In the present writer's own early days, when the now owner of +Swallowfield was a very young, younger son, she used to hear him and +his sister, Mrs. Brackenbury (the Miss Priscilla of the note), +speaking with affectionate remembrance of the old friend lately +gone, who had dwelt at their very gates; through which friendly +gates one is glad, indeed, to realise what delightful companionship +and loving help came to cheer the end of that long and toilsome +life; and when Messrs. Macmillan suggested this preface the writer +looked for her old autograph-book, and at its suggestion wrote +(wondering whether any links existed still) to ask for information +concerning Miss Mitford, and so it happened that she found herself +also kindly entertained at Swallowfield, and invited to visit the +scenes of which the author of 'Our Village' had written with so much +delight. + +I think I should like to reverse the old proverb about letting those +who run read, my own particular fancy being for reading first and +running afterwards. There are few greater pleasures than to meet +with an Individuality, to listen to it speaking from a printed page, +recounting, suggesting, growing upon you every hour, gaining in life +and presence, and then, while still under its influence, to find +oneself suddenly transported into the very scene of that life, to +stand among its familiar impressions and experiences, realising +another distinct existence by some odd metempsychosis, and what may- +-or rather, what MUST have been. It is existing a book rather than +reading it when this happens to one. + +The house in Swallowfield Park is an old English country home, a +fastness still piled up against time; whose stately walls and halls +within, and beautiful century-old trees in the park without, record +great times and striking figures. The manor was a part of the dowry +of Henry the VIII.'s luckless queens. The modern house was built by +Clarendon, and the old church among the elms dates from 1200, with +carved signs and symbols and brasses of knights and burgesses, and +names of strange sound and bygone fashion. + +Lady Russell, who had sent the phaeton with the fast-stepping horse +to meet us, was walking in the park as we drove up, and instead of +taking us back to the house, she first led the way across the grass +and by the stream to the old church, standing in its trim sweet +garden, where Death itself seems smiling and fearless; where kind +Mary Mitford's warm heart rests quiet, and 'her busy hand,' as she +says herself, 'is lying in peace there, where the sun glances +through the great elm trees in the beautiful churchyard of +Swallowfield.' + +The last baronet, Sir Charles, who fought in the Crimea, and who +succeeded his father, Sir Henry, moved the dividing rail so that his +old friend should be well within the shadow of these elm trees. +Lady Russell showed us the tranquil green place, and told us its +story, and how the old church had once been doomed to destruction +when Kingsley came over by chance, and pleaded that it should be +spared; and how, when rubbish and outward signs of decay had been +cleared away, the restorers were rewarded for their piety, by coming +upon noble beams of oak, untouched by time, upon some fine old +buried monuments and brasses and inscriptions, among which the +people still say their prayers in the shrine where their fathers +knelt, and of which the tradition is not yet swept away. The +present Lady of the Manor, who loves old traditions, has done her +part to preserve the records for her children. + +So Miss Mitford walked from Three Mile Cross to Swallowfield to end +her days, with these kind friends to cheer and to comfort her. Sir +Henry Russell was alive when she first established herself, but he +was already suffering from some sudden seizure, which she, with her +usual impetuosity, describes in her letters as a chronic state of +things. After his death, his widow, the Lady Russell of those days, +was her kindest friend and comforter. + +The little Swallowfield cottage at the meeting of the three roads, +to which Mary Mitford came when she left Three Mile Cross, has +thrown out a room or two, as cottages do, but otherwise I think it +can be little changed. It was here Miss Mitford was visited by so +many interesting people, here she used to sit writing at her big +table under the 'tassels of her acacia tree.' When the present Lady +of the Manor brought us to the gate, the acacia flowers were over, +but a balmy breath of summer was everywhere; a beautiful rose was +hanging upon the wall beneath the window (it must have taken many +years to grow to such a height), and beyond the palings of the +garden spread the fields, ripening in the late July, and turning to +gold. The farmer and his son were at work with their scythes; the +birds were still flying, the sweet scents were in the air. + +From a lady who had known her, 'my own Miss Anne' of the letters, we +heard something more that day of the author of 'Our Village'; of her +charming intellect, her gift of talk, her impulsiveness, her +essential sociability, and rapid grace of mind. She had the faults +of her qualities; she jumped too easily to conclusions; she was too +much under the influence of those with whom she lived. She was born +to be a victim,--even after her old tyrant father's death, she was +more or less over-ridden by her servants. Neighbours looked +somewhat doubtfully on K. and Ben, but they were good to her, on the +whole, and tended her carefully. Miss Russell said that when she +and her brother took refuge in the cottage, one morning from a +storm, while they dried themselves by the fire, they saw the careful +meal carried up to the old lady, the kidneys, the custard, for her +dejeuner a la fourchette. + +When Miss Mitford died, she left everything she had to her beloved +K. and to Ben, except that she said she wished that one book from +her well-stocked library should be given to each of her friends. +The old Doctor, with all his faults, had loved books, and bought +handsome and valuable first editions of good authors. K. and Ben +also seem to have loved books and first editions. To the Russells, +who had nursed Miss Mitford, comforted her, by whose gates she +dwelt, in whose arms she died, Ben brought, as a token of +remembrance, an old shilling volume of one of G. P. R. James's +novels, which was all he could bear to part with. A prettier +incident was told me by Miss Russell, who once went to visit Miss +Mitford's grave. She found a young man standing there whom she did +not know. 'Don't you know me?' said he; 'I am Henry, ma'am. I have +just come back from Australia.' He was one of the children of the +couple who had lived in the cottage, and his first visit on his +return from abroad had been to the tomb of his old protectress. + +I also heard a friend who knew Miss Mitford in her latest days, +describe going to see her within a very few months of her death; she +was still bright and responding as ever, though very ill. The young +visitor had herself been laid up and absent from the invalid's +bedside for some time. They talked over many things,--an authoress +among the rest, concerning whose power of writing a book Miss +Mitford seems to have been very doubtful. After her visitor was +gone, the sick woman wrote one of her delicate pretty little notes +and despatched it with its tiny seal (there it is still unbroken, +with its M. R. M. just as she stamped it), and this is the little +letter:-- + +Thank you, dearest Miss . . . for once again showing me your fair +face by the side of the dear, dear friend [Lady Russell] for whose +goodness I have neither thanks nor words. To the end of my life I +shall go on sinning and repenting. Heartily sorry have I been ever +since you went away to have spoken so unkindly to Mrs . . . . +Heaven forgive me for it, and send her a happier conclusion to her +life than the beginning might warrant. If you have an idle lover, +my dear, present over to him my sermon, for those were words of +worth. + +God bless you all! Ever, most faithfully and affectionately yours, + M. R. MITFORD. +Sunday Evening. + +VIII. + +When one turns from Miss Mitford's works to the notices in the +biographical dictionary (in which Miss Mitford and Mithridates +occupy the same page), one finds how firmly her reputation is +established. 'Dame auteur,' says my faithful mentor, the Biographic +Generale, 'consideree comme le peintre le plus fidele de la vie +rurale en Angleterre.' 'Author of a remarkable tragedy, "Julian," +in which Macready played a principal part, followed by "Foscari," +"Rienzi," and others,' says the English Biographical Dictionary. + +'I am charmed with my new cottage,' she writes soon after her last +installation; 'the neighbours are most kind.' Kingsley was one of +the first to call upon her. 'He took me quite by surprise in his +extraordinary fascination,' says the old lady. + +Mr. Fields, the American publisher, also went to see Miss Mitford at +Swallowfield, and immediately became a very great ally of hers. It +was to him that she gave her own portrait, by Lucas. Mr. Fields has +left an interesting account of her in his 'Yesterdays with Authors'- +-'Her dogs and her geraniums,' he says, 'were her great glories! +She used to write me long letters about Fanchon, a dog whose +personal acquaintance I had made some time before, while on a visit +to her cottage. Every virtue under heaven she attributed to that +canine individual; and I was obliged to allow in my return letters +that since our planet began to spin, nothing comparable to Fanchon +had ever run on four legs. I had also known Flush, the ancestor of +Fanchon, intimately, and had been accustomed to hear wonderful +things of that dog, but Fanchon had graces and genius unique. Miss +Mitford would have joined with Hamerton, when he says, 'I humbly +thank Divine Providence for having invented dogs, and I regard that +man with wondering pity who can lead a dogless life.' + +Another of Miss Mitford's great friends was John Ruskin,* and one +can well imagine how much they must have had in common. Of Miss +Mitford's writings Ruskin says, 'They have the playfulness and +purity of the "Vicar of Wakefield" without the naughtiness of its +occasional wit, or the dust of the world's great road on the other +side of the hedge. . . . ' + +*It is Mr. Harness who says, writing of Ruskin and Miss Mitford, +'His kindness cheered her closing days. He sent her every book that +would interest, every delicacy that would strengthen her.' + +Neither the dust nor the ethics of the world of men quite belonged +to Miss Mitford's genius. It is always a sort of relief to turn +from her criticism of people, her praise of Louis Napoleon, her +facts about Mr. Dickens, whom she describes as a dull companion, or +about my father, whom she looked upon as an utter heartless +worldling, to the natural spontaneous sweet flow of nature in which +she lived and moved instinctively. + +Mr. James Payn gives, perhaps, the most charming of all the +descriptions of the author of 'Our Village.' He has many letters +from her to quote from. 'The paper is all odds and ends,' he says, +'and not a scrap of it but is covered and crossed. The very flaps +of the envelopes and the outsides of them have their message.' + +Mr. Payn went to see her at Swallowfield, and describes the small +apartment lined with books from floor to ceiling and fragrant with +flowers. 'Its tenant rose from her arm-chair with difficulty, but +with a sunny smile and a charming manner bade me welcome. My father +had been an old friend of hers, and she spoke of my home and +belongings as only a woman can speak of such things, then we plunged +into medea res, into men and books. She seemed to me to have known +everybody worth knowing from the Duke of Wellington to the last new +verse-maker. And she talked like an angel, but her views upon +poetry as a calling in life, shocked me not a little. She said she +preferred a mariage de convenance to a love match, because it +generally turned out better. "This surprises you," she said, +smiling, "but then I suppose I am the least romantic person that +ever wrote plays." She was much more proud of her plays, even then +well-nigh forgotten, than of the works by which she was well known, +and which at that time brought people from the ends of the earth to +see her. . . . + +'Nothing ever destroyed her faith in those she loved. If I had not +known all about him from my own folk I should have thought her +father had been a patriot and a martyr. She spoke of him as if +there had never been such a father--which in a sense was true.' + +Mr. Payn quotes Miss Mitford's charming description of K., 'for whom +she had the highest admiration.' 'K. is a great curiosity, by far +the cleverest woman in these parts, not in a literary way [this was +not to disappoint me], but in everything that is useful. She could +make a Court dress for a duchess or cook a dinner for a Lord Mayor, +but her principal talent is shown in managing everybody whom she +comes near. Especially her husband and myself; she keeps the money +of both and never allows either of us to spend sixpence without her +knowledge. . . . You should see the manner in which she makes Ben +reckon with her, and her contempt for all women who do not manage +their husbands.' + +Another delightful quotation is from one of Charles Kingsley's +letters to Mr. Payn. It brings the past before us from another +point of view. + +'I can never forget the little figure rolled up in two chairs in the +little Swallowfield room, packed round with books up to the ceiling- +-the little figure with clothes on of no recognised or recognisable +pattern; and somewhere, out of the upper end of the heap, gleaming +under a great deep globular brow, two such eyes as I never perhaps +saw in any other Englishwoman--though I believe she must have had +French blood in her veins to breed such eyes and such a tongue, the +beautiful speech which came out of that ugly (it was that) face, and +the glitter and depth too of the eyes, like live coals--perfectly +honest the while. . . .' One would like to go on quoting and +copying, but here my preface must cease, for it is but a preface +after all, one of those many prefaces written out of the past and +when everything is over. + + + +COUNTRY PICTURES. + +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 contains; or to ramble +with Mr. White* over his own parish of Selborne, and form a +friendship with the fields and coppices, as well as with the birds, +mice, and squirrels, who inhabit them; or to sail with Robinson +Crusoe to his island, and live there with him and his goats and his +man Friday;--how much we dread any new comers, any fresh importation +of savage or sailor! we never sympathise for a moment in our hero's +want of company, and are quite grieved when he gets away;--or to be +shipwrecked with Ferdinand on that other lovelier island--the island +of Prospero, and Miranda, and Caliban, and Ariel, and nobody 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, straggling, winding street at the bottom of a +fine eminence, with a road through it, always abounding in carts, +horsemen, and carriages, and lately enlivened by a stage-coach from +B---- to S----, which passed through about ten days ago, and will I +suppose return some time or other. There are coaches of all +varieties nowadays; perhaps this may be intended for a monthly +diligence, or a fortnight fly. Will you walk with me through our +village, courteous reader? The journey is not long. We will begin +at the lower end, and proceed up the hill. + +*White's 'Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne;' one of the +most fascinating books ever written. I wonder that no naturalist +has adopted the same plan. + +The tidy, square, red cottage on the right hand, with the long +well-stocked garden by the side of the road, belongs to a retired +publican from a neighbouring town; a substantial person with a +comely wife; one who piques himself on independence and idleness, +talks politics, reads newspapers, hates the minister, and cries out +for reform. He introduced into our peaceful vicinage the rebellious +innovation of an 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-handkerchief) with a +flaming portrait of her Majesty, hatted and feathered, in red ochre. +He had no rival in the village, that we all acknowledged; the very +bonfire was less splendid; the little boys reserved their best +crackers to be expended in his honour, and he gave them full +sixpence more than any one else. He would like an illumination once +a month; for it must not be concealed that, in spite of gardening, +of newspaper reading, of jaunting about in his little cart, and +frequenting both church and meeting, our worthy neighbour begins to +feel the weariness of idleness. He hangs over his gate, and tries +to entice passengers to stop and chat; he volunteers little jobs all +round, smokes cherry trees to cure the blight, and traces and blows +up all the wasps'-nests in the parish. I have seen a great many +wasps in our garden to-day, and shall enchant him with the +intelligence. He even assists his wife in her sweepings and +dustings. Poor man! he is a very respectable person, and would be a +very happy one, if he would add a little employment to his dignity. +It would be the salt of life to him. + +Next to his house, though parted from it by another long garden with +a yew arbour at the end, is the pretty dwelling of the shoemaker, a +pale, sickly-looking, black-haired man, the very model of sober +industry. There he sits in his little shop from early morning till +late at night. An earthquake would hardly stir him: the +illumination did not. He stuck immovably to his last, from the +first lighting up, through the long blaze and the slow decay, till +his large solitary candle was the only light in the place. One +cannot conceive anything more perfect than the contempt which the +man of transparencies and the man of shoes must have felt for each +other on that evening. There was at least as much vanity in the +sturdy industry as in the strenuous idleness, for our shoemaker is a +man of substance; he employs three journeymen, two lame, and one a +dwarf, so that his shop looks like an hospital; he has purchased the +lease of his commodious dwelling, some even say that he has bought +it out and out; and he has only one pretty daughter, a light, +delicate, fair-haired girl of fourteen, the champion, protectress, +and playfellow of every brat under three years old, whom she jumps, +dances, dandles, and feeds all day long. A very attractive person +is that child-loving girl. I have never seen any one in her station +who possessed so thoroughly that undefinable charm, the lady-look. +See her on a Sunday in her simplicity and her white frock, and she +might pass for an earl's daughter. She likes flowers too, and has a +profusion of white stocks under her window, as pure and delicate as +herself. + +The first house on the opposite side of the way is the blacksmith's; +a gloomy dwelling, where the sun never seems to shine; dark and +smoky within and without, like a forge. The blacksmith is a high +officer in our little state, nothing less than a constable; but, +alas! alas! when tumults arise, and the constable is called for, he +will commonly be found in the thickest of the fray. Lucky would it +be for his wife and her eight children if there were no public-house +in the land: an inveterate inclination to enter those bewitching +doors is Mr. Constable's only fault. + +Next to this official dwelling is a spruce brick tenement, red, +high, and narrow, boasting, one above another, three sash-windows, +the only sash-windows in the village, with a clematis on one side +and a rose on the other, tall and narrow like itself. That slender +mansion has a fine, genteel look. The little parlour seems made for +Hogarth's old maid and her stunted footboy; for tea and card +parties,--it would just hold one table; for the rustle of faded +silks, and the splendour of old china; for the delight of four by +honours, and a little snug, quiet scandal between the deals; for +affected gentility and real starvation. This should have been its +destiny; but fate has been unpropitious: it belongs to a plump, +merry, bustling dame, with four fat, rosy, noisy children, the very +essence of vulgarity and plenty. + +Then comes the village shop, like other village shops, multifarious +as a bazaar; a repository for bread, shoes, tea, cheese, tape, +ribands, and bacon; for everything, in short, except the one +particular thing which you happen to want at the moment, and will be +sure not to find. The people are civil and thriving, and frugal +withal; they have let the upper part of their house to two young +women (one of them is a pretty blue-eyed girl) who teach little +children their A B C, and make caps and gowns for their mammas,-- +parcel schoolmistress, parcel mantua-maker. I believe they find +adorning the body a more profitable vocation than adorning the mind. + +Divided from the shop by a narrow yard, and opposite the +shoemaker's, is a habitation of whose inmates I shall say nothing. +A cottage--no--a miniature house, with many additions, little odds +and ends of places, pantries, and what not; all angles, and of a +charming in-and-outness; a little bricked court before one half, and +a little flower-yard before the other; the walls, old and +weather-stained, covered with hollyhocks, roses, honeysuckles, and a +great apricot-tree; the casements full of geraniums (ah! there is +our superb white cat peeping out from among them); the closets (our +landlord has the assurance to call them rooms) full of contrivances +and corner-cupboards; and the little garden behind full of common +flowers, tulips, pinks, larkspurs, peonies, stocks, and carnations, +with an arbour of privet, not unlike a sentry-box, where one lives +in a 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 +exceeding small compass comfort may be packed. Well, I will loiter +there no longer. + +The next tenement is a place of importance, the Rose Inn: a +white-washed building, retired from the road behind its fine +swinging sign, with a little bow-window room coming out on one side, +and forming, with our stable on the other, a sort of open square, +which is the constant resort of carts, waggons, and return chaises. +There are two carts there now, and mine host is serving them with +beer in his eternal red waistcoat. He is a thriving man and a +portly, as his waistcoat attests, which has been twice let out +within this twelvemonth. Our landlord has a stirring wife, a +hopeful son, and a daughter, the belle of the village; not so pretty +as the fair nymph of the shoe-shop, and far less elegant, but ten +times as fine; all curl-papers in the morning, like a porcupine, all +curls in the afternoon, like a poodle, with more flounces than +curl-papers, and more lovers than curls. Miss Phoebe is fitter for +town than country; and to do her justice, she has a consciousness of +that fitness, and turns her steps townward as often as she can. She +is gone to B---- to-day with her last and principal lover, a +recruiting sergeant--a man as tall as Sergeant Kite, and as +impudent. Some day or other he will carry off Miss Phoebe. + +In a line with the bow-window room is a low garden-wall, belonging +to a house under repair:--the white house opposite the +collar-maker's shop, with four lime-trees before it, and a +waggon-load of bricks at the door. That house is the plaything of a +wealthy, well-meaning, whimsical person who lives about a mile off. +He has a passion for brick and mortar, and, being too wise to meddle +with his own residence, diverts himself with altering and +re-altering, improving and re-improving, doing and undoing here. It +is a perfect Penelope's web. Carpenters and bricklayers have been +at work for these eighteen months, and yet I sometimes stand and +wonder whether anything has really been done. One exploit in last +June was, however, by no means equivocal. Our good neighbour +fancied that the limes shaded the rooms, and made them dark (there +was not a creature in the house but the workmen), so he had all the +leaves stripped from every tree. There they stood, poor miserable +skeletons, as bare as Christmas under the glowing midsummer sun. +Nature revenged herself, in her own sweet and gracious manner; fresh +leaves sprang out, and at nearly Christmas the foliage was as +brilliant as when the outrage was committed. + +Next door lives a carpenter, 'famed ten miles round, and worthy all +his fame,'--few cabinet-makers surpass him, with his excellent wife, +and their little daughter Lizzy, the plaything and queen of the +village, a child three years old according to the register, but six +in size and strength and intellect, in power and in self-will. She +manages everybody in the place, her schoolmistress included; turns +the wheeler's children out of their own little cart, and makes them +draw her; seduces cakes and lollypops from the very shop window; +makes the lazy carry her, the silent talk to her, the grave romp +with her; does anything she pleases; is absolutely irresistible. +Her chief attraction lies in her exceeding power of loving, and her +firm reliance on the love and 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 +countenance. She has the imperial attitudes too, and loves to stand +with her hands behind her, or folded over her bosom; and sometimes, +when she has a little touch of shyness, she clasps them 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 greyhound called +Mayflower, much her friend, who resembles her in beauty and +strength, in playfulness, and almost in sagacity, and reigns over +the animal world as she over the human. They are both coming with +me, Lizzy and Lizzy's 'pretty May.' We are now at the end of the +street; a cross-lane, a rope-walk shaded with limes and oaks, and a +cool clear pond overhung with elms, lead us to the bottom of the +hill. There is still one house round the corner, ending in a +picturesque wheeler's shop. The dwelling-house is more ambitious. +Look at the fine flowered window-blinds, the green door with the +brass knocker, and the somewhat prim but very civil person, who is +sending off a labouring man with sirs and curtsies enough for a +prince of the blood. Those are the curate's lodgings--apartments +his landlady would call them; he lives with his own family four +miles off, but once or twice a week he comes to his neat little +parlour to write sermons, to marry, or to bury, as the case may +require. Never were better or kinder people than his host and +hostess; and there is a reflection of clerical importance about them +since their connection with the Church, which is quite edifying--a +decorum, a gravity, a solemn politeness. Oh, to see the worthy +wheeler carry the gown after his lodger on a Sunday, nicely pinned +up in his wife's best handkerchief!--or to hear him rebuke a +squalling child or a squabbling woman! The curate is nothing to +him. He is fit to be perpetual churchwarden. + +We must now cross the lane into the shady rope-walk. That pretty +white cottage opposite, which stands straggling at the end of the +village in a garden full of flowers, belongs to our mason, the +shortest of men, and his handsome, tall wife: he, a dwarf, with the +voice of a giant; one starts when he begins to talk as if he were +shouting through a speaking trumpet; she, the sister, daughter, and +grand-daughter, of a long line of gardeners, and no contemptible one +herself. It is very magnanimous in me not to hate her; for she +beats me in my own way, in chrysanthemums, and dahlias, and the like +gauds. Her plants are sure to live; mine have a sad trick of dying, +perhaps because I love them, 'not wisely, but too well,' and kill +them with over-kindness. Half-way up the hill is another detached +cottage, the residence of an officer, and his beautiful family. +That eldest boy, who is hanging over the gate, and looking with such +intense childish admiration at my Lizzy, might be a model for a +Cupid. + +How pleasantly the road winds up the hill, with its broad green +borders and hedgerows so thickly timbered! How finely the evening +sun falls on that sandy excavated bank, and touches the farmhouse on +the top of the eminence! and how clearly defined and relieved is the +figure of the man who is just coming +down! It is poor John Evans, the gardener--an excellent gardener +till about ten years ago, when he lost his wife, and became insane. +He was sent to St. Luke's, and dismissed as cured; but his power was +gone and his strength; he could no longer manage a garden, nor +submit to the restraint, nor encounter the fatigue of regular +employment: so he retreated to the workhouse, the pensioner 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 objects; but he is perfectly harmless, and full +of a childlike simplicity, a smiling contentedness, a most touching +gratitude. Every one is kind to John Evans, for there is that about +him which must be loved; and his unprotectedness, his utter +defencelessness, have an irresistible claim on every better feeling. +I know nobody who inspires so deep and tender a pity; he improves +all around him. He is useful, too, to the extent of his little +power; will do anything, but loves gardening best, and still piques +himself on his old arts of pruning fruit-trees, and raising +cucumbers. He is the happiest of men just now, for he has the +management of a melon bed--a melon bed!--fie! What a grand pompous +name was that for three melon plants under a hand-light! John Evans +is sure that they will succeed. We shall see: as the chancellor +said, 'I doubt.' + +We are now on the very brow of the eminence, close to the Hill-house +and its beautiful garden. On the outer edge of the paling, hanging +over the bank that skirts the road, is an old thorn--such a thorn! +The long sprays covered with snowy blossoms, so graceful, so +elegant, so lightsome, and yet so rich! There only wants a pool +under the thorn to give a still lovelier reflection, quivering and +trembling, like a tuft of feathers, whiter and greener than the +life, and more prettily mixed with the bright blue sky. There +should indeed be a pool; but on the dark grass-plat, under the high +bank, which is crowned by that magnificent plume, there is something +that does almost as well,--Lizzy and Mayflower in the midst of a +game at romps, 'making a sunshine in the shady place;' Lizzy +rolling, laughing, clapping her hands, and glowing like a rose; +Mayflower 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 foreground 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 waggon slowly ascending, and a horseman passing +it at a full trot--(ah! Lizzy, Mayflower will certainly desert you +to have a gambol with that blood-horse!) half-way down, just at the +turn, the red cottage of the lieutenant, covered with vines, the +very image of comfort and content; farther down, on the opposite +side, the small white dwelling of the little mason; then the limes +and the rope-walk; then the village street, peeping through the +trees, whose clustering tops hide all but the chimneys, and various +roofs of the houses, and here and there some angle of a wall; +farther on, the elegant town of B----, with its fine old +church-towers and spires; the whole view shut in by a range of +chalky hills and over every part of the picture, trees so profusely +scattered, that it appears like a woodland scene, with glades and +villages intermixed. The trees are of all kinds and all hues, +chiefly the finely-shaped elm, of so bright and deep a green, the +tips of whose high outer branches drop down with such a crisp and +garland-like richness, and the oak, whose stately form is just now +so splendidly adorned by the sunny colouring of the young leaves. +Turning again up the hill, we find ourselves on that peculiar charm +of English scenery, a green common, divided by the road; the right +side fringed by hedgerows and trees, with cottages and farmhouses +irregularly placed, and terminated by a double avenue of noble oaks; +the left, prettier still, dappled by bright pools of water, and +islands of cottages and cottage-gardens, and sinking gradually down +to cornfields and meadows, and an old farmhouse, with pointed roofs +and clustered chimneys, 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 blossoms +reflect so intensely the last beams of the setting sun, and alive +with cows and sheep, and two sets of cricketers; one of young men, +surrounded by spectators, some standing, some sitting, some +stretched on the grass, all taking a delighted interest in the game; +the other, a merry group of little boys, at a humble distance, for +whom even cricket is scarcely lively enough, shouting, leaping, and +enjoying themselves to their hearts' content. But cricketers and +country boys are too important persons in our village to be talked +of merely as figures in the landscape. They deserve an individual +introduction--an essay to themselves--and they shall have it. No +fear of forgetting the good-humoured faces that meet us in our walks +every day. + + + +WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. + +Frost. + +January 23rd.--At noon to-day I and my white greyhound, Mayflower, +set out for a walk into a very beautiful world,--a sort of silent +fairyland,--a creation of that matchless magician the hoar-frost. +There had been just snow enough to cover the earth and all its +covers with one sheet of pure and uniform white, and just time +enough since the snow had fallen to allow the hedges to be freed of +their fleecy load, and clothed with a delicate coating of rime. The +atmosphere was deliciously calm; soft, even mild, in spite of the +thermometer; no perceptible air, but a stillness that might almost +be felt, the sky, rather gray than blue, throwing out in bold relief +the snow-covered roofs of our village, and the rimy trees that rise +above them, and the sun shining dimly as through a veil, giving a +pale fair light, like the moon, only brighter. There was a silence, +too, that might become the moon, as we stood at our little gate +looking up the quiet street; a Sabbath-like pause of work and play, +rare on a work-day; nothing was audible but the pleasant hum of +frost, that low monotonous sound, which is perhaps the nearest +approach that life and nature can make to absolute silence. The +very waggons as they come 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 sat on the window-sill with her +bright rosy face laughing through the casement, has seen her and +disappeared. She is coming. No! The key is turning in the door, +and sounds of evil omen issue through the keyhole--sturdy 'let me +outs,' and 'I will goes,' mixed with shrill cries on May and on me +from Lizzy, piercing through a low continuous harangue, of which the +prominent parts are apologies, chilblains, sliding, broken bones, +lollypops, rods, and 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 children than +coddling. Nothing better for chilblains than exercise. Besides, I +don't believe she has any--and as to breaking her bones in sliding, +I don't suppose there's a slide on the common. These murmuring +cogitations have brought us up the hill, and half-way across the +light and airy common, with its bright expanse of snow and its +clusters of cottages, whose turf fires send such wreaths of smoke +sailing up the air, and diffuse such aromatic fragrance around. And +now comes the delightful sound of childish voices, ringing with glee +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 triumph. Half a +dozen steps bring us to the bank right above them. May can hardly +resist the temptation of joining her friends, for most of the +varlets are of her acquaintance, especially the rogue who leads the +slide,--he with the brimless hat, whose bronzed complexion and white +flaxen hair, reversing the usual lights and shadows of the human +countenance, give so strange and foreign a look to his flat and +comic features. This hobgoblin, Jack Rapley by name, is May's great +crony; and she stands on the brink of the steep, irregular descent, +her black eyes fixed full upon him, as if she intended him the +favour of jumping on his head. She does: she is down, and upon +him; but Jack Rapley is not easily to be knocked off his feet. He +saw her coming, and in the moment of her leap sprung dexterously off +the slide on the rough ice, steadying himself by the shoulder of the +next in the file, which unlucky follower, thus unexpectedly checked +in his career, fell plump backwards, knocking down the rest of the +line like a nest of card-houses. There is no harm done; but there +they lie, roaring, kicking, sprawling, in every attitude of comic +distress, whilst Jack Rapley and Mayflower, sole authors of this +calamity, stand apart from the throng, fondling, and coquetting, and +complimenting each other, and very visibly laughing, May in her +black eyes, Jack in his wide, close-shut mouth, and his whole +monkey-face, at their 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 sauciest, idlest, cleverest, best-natured +boy in the parish; always foremost in mischief, and always ready to +do a good turn. The sages of our village predict sad things of Jack +Rapley, so that I am sometimes a little ashamed to confess, before +wise people, that I have a lurking predilection for him (in common +with other naughty ones), and that I like to hear him talk to May +almost as well as she does. 'Come, May!' and up she springs, as +light as a bird. The road is gay now; carts and post-chaises, and +girls in red cloaks, and, afar off, looking almost like a toy, the +coach. It meets us fast and soon. How much happier the walkers +look than the riders--especially the frost-bitten gentleman, and the +shivering lady with the invisible face, sole passengers of that +commodious machine! Hooded, veiled, and bonneted, as she is, one +sees from her attitude how miserable she would look uncovered. + +Another pond, and another noise of children. More sliding? Oh no! +This is a sport of higher pretension. Our good neighbour, the +lieutenant, skating, and his own pretty little boys, and two or +three other four-year-old elves, standing on the brink in an ecstasy +of joy and wonder! Oh what happy spectators! And what a happy +performer! They admiring, he admired, with an ardour and sincerity +never excited by all the quadrilles and the spread-eagles of the +Seine and the Serpentine. He really skates well though, and I am +glad I came this way; for, with all the father's feelings sitting +gaily at his heart, it must still gratify the pride of skill to have +one spectator at that solitary pond who has seen skating before. + +Now we have reached the trees,--the beautiful trees! never so +beautiful as to-day. Imagine the effect of a straight and regular +double avenue of oaks, nearly a mile long, arching overhead, and +closing into perspective like the roof and columns of a cathedral, +every tree and branch incrusted with the bright and delicate +congelation of hoar-frost, white and pure as snow, delicate and +defined as carved ivory. How beautiful it is, how uniform, how +various, how filling, how satiating to the eye and to the mind-- +above all, how melancholy! There is a thrilling awfulness, an +intense feeling of simple power in that naked and colourless beauty, +which falls on the earth like the thoughts of death--death pure, and +glorious, and smiling,--but still death. Sculpture has always the +same effect on my imagination, and painting never. Colour is life.- +-We are now at the end of this magnificent avenue, and at the top of +a steep eminence commanding a wide view over four counties--a +landscape of snow. A deep lane leads abruptly down the hill; a mere +narrow cart-track, sinking between high banks clothed with fern and +furze and low broom, crowned with luxuriant hedgerows, and famous +for their summer smell of thyme. How lovely these banks are now-- +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 Selborne calls it, perched in the middle of the +hedge, nestling as it were amongst the cold bare boughs, seeking, +poor pretty thing, for the warmth it will not find. And there, +farther on, just under the bank, by the slender runlet, which still +trickles between its transparent fantastic margin of thin ice, as if +it were a thing of life,--there, with a swift, scudding motion, +flits, in short low flights, the gorgeous kingfisher, its +magnificent plumage of scarlet and blue flashing in the sun, like +the glories of some tropical bird. He is come for water to this +little spring by the hillside,--water which even his long bill and +slender head can hardly reach, so nearly do the fantastic forms of +those garland-like icy margins meet over the tiny stream beneath. +It is rarely that one sees the shy beauty so close or so long; and +it is pleasant to see him in the grace and beauty of his natural +liberty, the only way to look at a bird. We used, before we lived +in a street, to fix a little board outside the parlour window, and +cover it with bread crumbs in the hard weather. It was quite +delightful to see the pretty things come and feed, to conquer their +shyness, and do away their mistrust. First came the more social +tribes, 'the robin red-breast and the wren,' cautiously, +suspiciously, picking up a crumb 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 shyer birds, tamed by their +example, came next; and at last one saucy fellow of a blackbird--a +sad glutton, he would clear the board in two minutes,--used to tap +his yellow bill against the window for more. How we loved the +fearless confidence of that fine, frank-hearted creature! And +surely he loved us. I wonder the practice is not more general. +'May! May! naughty May!' She has frightened away the kingfisher; +and now, in her coaxing penitence, she is covering me with snow. +'Come, pretty May! it is time to go home.' + +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 country boots, and country +hardihood, will carry us through. What a dripping, comfortless day +it is! just like the last days of November: no sun, no sky, gray 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 watery world to +look back upon! Thames, Kennet, 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. Waggons creak, horses splash, carts +rattle, and pattens paddle through the dirt with more than their +usual clink. The common has its old fine tints of green and brown, +and its old variety of inhabitants, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and +donkeys. The ponds are unfrozen, except where some melancholy piece +of melting ice floats sullenly on the water; and cackling geese and +gabbling ducks have replaced the lieutenant and Jack Rapley. The +avenue is chill and dark, the hedges are dripping, the lanes +knee-deep, and all nature is in a state of 'dissolution and thaw.' + + + +THE FIRST PRIMROSE. + +March 6th.--Fine March weather: boisterous, blustering, much wind +and squalls of rain; and yet the sky, where the clouds are swept +away, deliciously blue, with snatches of sunshine, bright, and +clear, and healthful, and the roads, in spite of the slight +glittering showers, crisply dry. Altogether the day is tempting, +very tempting. It will not do for the dear common, that windmill of +a walk; but the close sheltered lanes at the bottom of the hill, +which keep out just enough of the stormy air, and let in all the +sun, will be delightful. Past our old house, and round by the +winding lanes, and the workhouse, and across the lea, and so into +the turnpike-road again,--that is our route for to-day. Forth we +set, Mayflower and I, rejoicing in the sunshine, and still more in +the wind, which gives such an intense feeling of existence, and, +co-operating with brisk motion, sets our blood and our spirits in a +glow. For mere physical pleasure, there is nothing perhaps equal to +the enjoyment of being drawn, in a light carriage, against such a +wind as this, by a blood-horse at his height of speed. Walking +comes next to it; but walking is not quite so luxurious or so +spiritual, not quite so much what one fancies of flying, or being +carried above the clouds in a balloon. + +Nevertheless, a walk is a good thing; especially under this southern +hedgerow, where nature is just beginning to live again; the +periwinkles, with their starry blue flowers, and their shining +myrtle-like leaves, garlanding the bushes; woodbines and elder-trees +pushing out their small swelling buds; and grasses and mosses +springing forth in every variety of brown and green. Here we are at +the corner where four lanes meet, or rather where a passable road of +stones and gravel crosses an impassable one of beautiful but +treacherous turf, and where the small white farmhouse, scarcely +larger than a cottage, and the well-stocked rick-yard behind, tell +of comfort and order, but leave all unguessed the great riches of +the master. How he became so rich is almost a puzzle; for, though +the farm be his own, it is not large; and though prudent and frugal +on ordinary occasions, Farmer Barnard is no miser. His horses, +dogs, and pigs are the best kept in the parish,--May herself, +although her beauty be injured by her fatness, half envies the +plight of his bitch Fly: his wife's gowns and shawls cost as much +again as any shawls or gowns in the village; his dinner parties (to +be sure they are not frequent) display twice the ordinary quantity +of good things--two couples of ducks, two dishes of green peas, two +turkey poults, two gammons of bacon, two plum-puddings; moreover, he +keeps a single-horse chaise, and has built and endowed a Methodist +chapel. Yet is he the richest man in these parts. Everything +prospers with him. Money drifts about him like snow. He looks like +a rich man. 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 come to the open common, with its +park-like trees, its beautiful stream, wandering and twisting along, +and its rural bridge. Here we turn again, past that other white +farmhouse, half hidden by the magnificent elms which stand before +it. Ah! riches dwell not there, but there is found the next best +thing--an industrious and light-hearted poverty. Twenty years ago +Rachel Hilton was the prettiest and merriest lass in the country. +Her father, an old gamekeeper, had retired to a village alehouse, +where his good beer, his social humour, and his black-eyed daughter, +brought much custom. She had lovers by the score; but Joseph White, +the dashing and lively son of an opulent farmer, carried off the +fair Rachel. They married and settled here, and here they live +still, as merrily as ever, with fourteen children of all ages and +sizes, from nineteen years to nineteen months, working harder than +any people in the parish, and enjoying themselves more. I would +match them for labour and laughter against any family in England. +She is a blithe, jolly dame, whose beauty has amplified into +comeliness; he is tall, and thin, and bony, with sinews like +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, drying in a +neglected garden, give signal of a washerwoman. There dwells, at +present in single blessedness, Betty Adams, the wife of our +sometimes gardener. I never saw any one who so much reminded me in +person of that lady whom everybody knows, Mistress Meg Merrilies;-- +as tall, as grizzled, as stately, as dark, as gipsy-looking, +bonneted and gowned like her prototype, and almost as oracular. +Here the resemblance ceases. Mrs. Adams is a perfectly honest, +industrious, painstaking person, who earns a good deal of money by +washing and charing, and spends it in other luxuries than tidiness,- +-in green tea, and gin, and snuff. Her husband lives in a great +family, ten miles off. He is a capital gardener--or rather he would +be so, if he were not too ambitious. He undertakes all things, and +finishes none. But a smooth tongue, a knowing look, and a great +capacity of labour, carry him through. Let him but like his ale and +his master and he will do work enough for four. Give him his own +way, and his full quantum, and nothing comes amiss to him. + +Ah, May is bounding forward! Her silly heart leaps at the sight of +the old place--and so in good truth does mine. What a pretty place +it was--or rather, how pretty I thought it! I suppose I should have +thought any place so where I had spent eighteen happy years. But it +was really pretty. A large, heavy, white house, in the simplest +style, surrounded by fine oaks and elms, and tall massy plantations +shaded down into a beautiful lawn by wild overgrown shrubs, bowery +acacias, ragged sweet-briers, 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 shrubbery, +interspersed with broom, and furze, and bramble, and pollard oaks +covered with ivy and honeysuckle; the whole enclosed by an old mossy +park paling, and terminating in a series of rich meadows, richly +planted. This is an exact description of the home which, three +years ago, it nearly broke my heart to leave. What a tearing up by +the root it was! I have pitied cabbage-plants and celery, and all +transplantable things, ever since; though, in common with them, and +with other vegetables, the first agony of the transportation being +over, I have taken such firm and tenacious hold of my new soil, that +I would not for the world be pulled up again, even to be restored to +the old beloved ground;--not even if its beauty were undiminished, +which is by no means the case; for in those three years it has +thrice changed masters, and every successive possessor has brought +the curse of improvement upon the place; so that between filling up +the water to cure dampness, cutting down trees to let in prospects, +planting to keep them out, shutting up windows to darken the inside +of the house (by which means one end looks precisely as an eight of +spades would do that should have the misfortune to lose one of his +corner pips), and building colonnades to lighten the out, added to a +general clearance of pollards, and brambles, and ivy, and +honeysuckles, and park palings, and irregular shrubs, the poor place +is so transmogrified, that if it had its old looking-glass, the +water, back again, it would not know its own face. And yet I love +to haunt round about it: so does May. Her particular attraction is +a certain broken bank full of rabbit burrows, into which she +insinuates her long pliant head and neck, and tears her pretty feet +by vain scratchings: mine is a warm sunny hedgerow, in the same +remote field, famous for early flowers. Never was a spot more +variously flowery: primroses yellow, lilac white, violets of either +hue, cowslips, oxslips, arums, orchises, wild hyacinths, ground ivy, +pansies, strawberries, heart's-ease, formed a small part of the +Flora of that wild hedgerow. How profusely they covered the sunny +open slope under the weeping birch, 'the lady of the woods'--and how +often have I started to see the early innocent brown snake, who +loved the spot as well as I did, winding along the young blossoms, +or rustling amongst the fallen leaves! There are primrose leaves +already, and short green buds, but no flowers; not even in that +furze cradle so full of roots, where they used to blow as in a +basket. No, my May, no rabbits! no primroses! We may as well get +over the gate into the woody winding lane, which will bring us home +again. + +Here we are making the best of our way between the old elms that +arch so solemnly over head, dark and sheltered even now. They say +that a spirit haunts this deep pool--a white lady without a head. I +cannot say that I have seen her, often as I have paced this lane at +deep midnight, to hear the nightingales, and look at the +glow-worms;--but there, better and rarer than a thousand ghosts, +dearer even than nightingales or glow-worms, there is a primrose, +the first of the year; a tuft of primroses, springing in yonder +sheltered nook, from the mossy roots of an old willow, and living +again in the clear bright pool. Oh, how beautiful they are--three +fully blown, and two bursting buds! How glad I am I came this way! +They are not to be reached. Even Jack Rapley's love of the +difficult and the unattainable would fail him here: May herself +could not stand on that steep bank. So much the better. Who would +wish to disturb them? There they live in their innocent and +fragrant beauty, sheltered from the storms, and rejoicing in the +sunshine, and looking as if they could feel their happiness. Who +would disturb them? Oh, how glad I am I came this way home! + + +VIOLETING. + +March 27th.--It is a dull gray morning, with a dewy feeling in the +air; fresh, but not windy; cool, but not cold;--the very day for a +person newly arrived from the heat, the glare, the noise, and the +fever of London, to plunge into the remotest labyrinths of the +country, and regain the repose of mind, the calmness of heart, which +has been lost in that great Babel. I must go violeting--it is a +necessity--and I must go alone: the sound of a voice, even my +Lizzy's, the touch of Mayflower's head, even the bounding of her +elastic foot, would disturb the serenity of feeling which I am +trying to recover. I shall go quite alone, with my little basket, +twisted like a bee-hive, which I love so well, because SHE gave it +to me, and kept sacred to violets and to those whom I love; and I +shall get out of the high-road the moment I can. I would not meet +any one just now, even of those whom I best like to meet. + +Ha!--Is not that group--a gentleman on a blood-horse, a lady keeping +pace with him so gracefully and easily--see how prettily her veil +waves in the wind created by her own rapid motion!--and that gay, +gallant boy, on the gallant white Arabian, curveting at their side, +but ready to spring before them every instant--is not that +chivalrous-looking party Mr. and Mrs. M. and dear R? No! the +servant is in a different livery. It is some of the ducal family, +and one of their young Etonians. I may go on. I shall meet no one +now; for I have fairly left the road, and am crossing the lea by one +of those wandering paths, amidst the gorse, and the heath, and the +low broom, which the sheep and lambs have made--a path turfy, +elastic, thymy, and sweet, even at this season. + +We have the good fortune to live in an unenclosed parish, and may +thank the wise obstinacy of two or three sturdy farmers, and the +lucky unpopularity of a ranting madcap lord of the manor, for +preserving the delicious green patches, the islets of wilderness +amidst cultivation, which form, perhaps, the peculiar beauty of +English scenery. The common that I am passing now--the lea, as it +is called--is one of the loveliest of these favoured spots. It is a +little sheltered scene, retiring, as it were, from the village; sunk +amidst higher lands, hills would be almost too grand a word; edged +on one side by one gay high-road, and intersected by another; and +surrounded by a most picturesque confusion of meadows, cottages, +farms, and orchards; with a great pond in one corner, unusually +bright and clear, giving a delightful cheerfulness and daylight to +the picture. The swallows haunt that pond; so do the children. +There is a merry group round it now; I have seldom seen it without +one. Children love water, clear, bright, sparkling water; it +excites and feeds their curiosity; it is motion and life. + +The path that I am treading leads to a less lively spot, to that +large heavy building on one side of the common, whose solid wings, +jutting out far beyond the main body, occupy three sides of a +square, and give a cold, shadowy look to the court. On one side is +a gloomy garden, with an old man digging in it, laid out in straight +dark beds of vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, onions, beans; all +earthy and mouldy as a newly-dug grave. Not a flower or flowering +shrub! Not a rose-tree or currant-bush! Nothing but for sober, +melancholy use. Oh, different from the long irregular slips of the +cottage-gardens, with their gay bunches of polyanthuses and +crocuses, their wallflowers sending sweet odours through the narrow +casement, and their gooseberry-trees bursting into a brilliancy of +leaf, whose vivid greenness has the effect of a blossom on the eye! +Oh, how different! On the other side of this gloomy abode is a +meadow of that deep, intense emerald hue, which denotes the presence +of stagnant water, surrounded by willows at regular distances, and +like the garden, separated from the common by a wide, moat-like +ditch. That is the parish workhouse. All about it is solid, +substantial, useful;--but so dreary! so cold! so dark! There are +children in the court, and yet all is silent. I always hurry past +that place as if it were a prison. Restraint, sickness, age, +extreme poverty, misery, which I have no power to remove or +alleviate,--these are the ideas, the feelings, which the sight of +those walls excites; yet, perhaps, if not certainly, they contain +less of that extreme desolation than the morbid fancy is apt to +paint. There will be found order, cleanliness, food, clothing, +warmth, refuge for the homeless, medicine and attendance for the +sick, rest and sufficiency for old age, and sympathy, the true and +active sympathy which the poor show to the poor, for the unhappy. +There may be worse places than a parish workhouse--and yet I hurry +past it. The feeling, the prejudice, will not be controlled. + +The end of the dreary garden edges off into a close-sheltered lane, +wandering and winding, like a rivulet, in gentle 'sinuosities' (to +use a word once applied by Mr. Wilberforce to the Thames at Henley), +amidst green meadows, all alive with cattle, sheep, and beautiful +lambs, in the very spring and pride of their tottering prettiness; +or fields of arable land, more lively still with troops of stooping +bean-setters, women and children, in all varieties of costume and +colour; and ploughs and harrows, with their whistling boys and +steady carters, going through, with a slow and plodding industry, +the main business of this busy season. What work beansetting is! +What a reverse of the position assigned to man to distinguish him +from the beasts of the field! Only think of stooping for six, +eight, ten hours a day, drilling holes in the earth with a little +stick, and then dropping in the beans one by one. They are paid +according to the quantity they plant; and some of the poor women +used to be accused of clumping them--that is to say, of dropping +more than one bean into a hole. It seems to me, considering the +temptation, that not to clump is to be at the very pinnacle of human +virtue. + +Another turn in the lane, and we come to the old house standing +amongst the high elms--the old farm-house, which always, I don't +know why, carries back my imagination to Shakspeare's days. It is a +long, low, irregular building, with one room, at an angle from the +house, covered with ivy, fine white-veined ivy; the first floor of +the main building projecting and supported by oaken beams, and one +of the windows below, with its old casement and long narrow panes, +forming the half of a shallow hexagon. A porch, with seats in it, +surmounted by a pinnacle, pointed roofs, and clustered chimneys, +complete the picture! Alas! it is little else but a picture! The +very walls are crumbling to decay under a careless landlord and +ruined tenant. + +Now a few yards farther, and I reach the bank. Ah! I smell them +already--their exquisite perfume steams and lingers in this moist, +heavy air. Through this little gate, and along the green south bank +of this green wheat-field, and they burst upon me, the lovely +violets, in tenfold loveliness. The ground is covered with them, +white and purple, enamelling the short dewy grass, looking but the +more vividly coloured under the dull, leaden sky. There they lie by +hundreds, by thousands. In former years I have been used to watch +them from the tiny green bud, till one or two stole into bloom. +They never came on me before in such a sudden and luxuriant glory of +simple beauty,--and I do really owe one pure and genuine pleasure to +feverish London! How beautifully they are placed too, on this +sloping bank, with the palm branches waving over them, full of early +bees, and mixing their honeyed scent with the more delicate violet +odour! How transparent and smooth and lusty are the branches, full +of sap and life! And there, just by the old mossy root, is a superb +tuft of primroses, with a yellow butterfly hovering over them, like +a flower floating on the air. What happiness to sit on this tufty +knoll, and fill my basket with the blossoms! What a renewal of +heart and mind! To inhabit such a scene of peace and sweetness is +again to be fearless, gay, and gentle as a child. Then it is that +thought becomes poetry, and feeling religion. Then it is that we +are happy and good. Oh, that my whole life could pass so, floating +on blissful and innocent sensation, enjoying in peace and gratitude +the common blessings of Nature, thankful above all for the simple +habits, the healthful temperament, which render them so dear! Alas! +who may dare expect a life of such happiness? But I can at least +snatch and prolong the fleeting pleasure, can fill my basket with +pure flowers, and my heart with pure thoughts; can gladden my little +home with their sweetness; can divide my treasures with one, a dear +one, who cannot seek them; can see them when I shut my eyes and +dream of them when I fall asleep. + + +THE COPSE. + +April 18th.--Sad wintry weather; a northeast wind; a sun that puts +out one's eyes, without affording the slightest warmth; dryness that +chaps lips and hands like a frost in December; rain that comes +chilly and arrowy like hail in January; nature at a dead pause; no +seeds up in the garden; no leaves out in the hedgerows; no cowslips +swinging their pretty bells in the fields; no nightingales in the +dingles; no swallows skimming round the great pond; no cuckoos (that +ever I should miss that rascally sonneteer!) in any part. +Nevertheless there is something of a charm in this wintry spring, +this putting-back of the seasons. If the flower-clock must stand +still for a month or two, could it choose a better time than that of +the primroses and violets? I never remember (and for such gauds my +memory, if not very good for aught of wise or useful, may be +trusted) such an affluence of the one or such a duration of the +other. Primrosy is the epithet which this year will retain in my +recollection. Hedge, ditch, meadow, field, even the very paths and +highways, are set with them; but their chief habitat is a certain +copse, about a mile off, where they are spread like a carpet, and +where I go to visit them rather oftener than quite comports with the +dignity of a lady of mature age. I am going thither this very +afternoon, and May and her company are going too. + +This Mayflower of mine is a strange animal. Instinct and imitation +make in her an approach to reason which is sometimes almost +startling. She mimics all that she sees us do, with the dexterity +of a monkey, and far more of gravity and apparent purpose; cracks +nuts and eats them; gathers currants and severs them from the stalk +with the most delicate nicety; filches and munches apples and pears; +is as dangerous in an orchard as a schoolboy; smells to flowers; +smiles at meeting; answers in a pretty lively voice when spoken to +(sad pity that the language should be unknown!) and has greatly the +advantage of us in a conversation, inasmuch as our meaning is +certainly clear to her;--all this and a thousand amusing +prettinesses (to say nothing of her canine feat of bringing her game +straight to her master's feet, and refusing to resign it to any hand +but his), does my beautiful greyhound perform untaught, by the mere +effect of imitation and sagacity. Well, May, at the end of the +coursing season, having lost Brush, our old spaniel, her great +friend, and the blue greyhound, Mariette, her comrade and rival, +both of which four-footed worthies were sent out to keep for the +summer, began to find solitude a weary condition, and to look abroad +for company. Now it so happened that the same suspension of sport +which had reduced our little establishment from three dogs to one, +had also dispersed the splendid kennel of a celebrated courser in +our neighbourhood, three of whose finest young dogs came home to +'their walk' (as the sporting phrase goes) at the collarmaker's in +our village. May, accordingly, on the first morning of her solitude +(she had never taken the slightest notice of her neighbours before, +although they had sojourned in our street upwards of a fortnight), +bethought herself of the timely resource offered to her by the +vicinity of these canine beaux, and went up boldly and knocked at +their stable door, which was already very commodiously on the +half-latch. The three dogs came out with much alertness and +gallantry, and May, declining apparently to enter their territories, +brought them off to her own. This manoeuvre has been repeated every +day, with one variation; of the three dogs, the first a brindle, the +second a yellow, and the third a black, the two first only are now +allowed to walk or consort with her, and the last, poor fellow, for +no fault that I can discover except May's caprice, is driven away +not only by the fair lady, but even by his old companions--is, so to +say, sent to Coventry. Of her two permitted followers, the yellow +gentleman, Saladin by name, is decidedly the favourite. He is, +indeed, May's shadow, and will walk with me whether I choose or not. +It is quite impossible to get rid of him unless by discarding Miss +May also;--and to accomplish a walk in the country without her, +would be like an adventure of Don Quixote without his faithful +'squire Sancho. + +So forth we set, May and I, and Saladin and the brindle; May and +myself walking with the sedateness and decorum befitting our sex and +age (she is five years old this grass, rising six)--the young +things, for the soldan and the brindle are (not meaning any +disrespect) little better than puppies, frisking and frolicking as +best pleased them. + +Our route lay for the first part along the sheltered quiet lanes +which lead to our old habitation; a way never trodden by me without +peculiar and homelike feelings, full of the recollections, the pains +and pleasures, of other days. But we are not to talk sentiment +now;--even May would not understand that maudlin language. We must +get on. What a wintry hedgerow this is for the eighteenth of April! +Primrosy to be sure, abundantly spangled with those stars of the +earth,--but so bare, so leafless, so cold! The wind whistles +through the brown boughs as in winter. Even the early elder shoots, +which do make an approach to springiness, look brown, and the small +leaves of the woodbine, which have also ventured to peep forth, are +of a sad purple, frost-bitten, like a dairymaid's elbows on a snowy +morning. The very birds, in this season of pairing and building, +look chilly and uncomfortable, and their nests!--'Oh, Saladin! come +away from the hedge! Don't you see that what puzzles you and makes +you leap up in the air is a redbreast's nest? Don't you see the +pretty speckled eggs? Don't you hear the poor hen calling as it +were for help? Come here this moment, sir!' And by good luck +Saladin (who for a paynim has tolerable qualities) comes, before he +has touched the nest, or before his playmate the brindle, the less +manageable of the two, has espied it. + +Now we go round the corner and cross the bridge, where the common, +with its clear stream winding between clumps of elms, assumes so +park-like an appearance. Who is this approaching so slowly and +majestically, this square bundle of petticoat and cloak, this +road-waggon of a woman? It is, it must be Mrs. Sally Mearing, the +completest specimen within my knowledge of farmeresses (may I be +allowed that innovation in language?) as they were. It can be +nobody else. + +Mrs. Sally Mearing, when I first became acquainted with her, +occupied, together with her father (a superannuated man of ninety), +a large farm very near our former habitation. It had been anciently +a great manor-farm or court-house, and was still a stately, +substantial building, whose lofty halls and spacious chambers gave +an air of grandeur to the common offices to which they were applied. +Traces of gilding might yet be seen on the panels which covered the +walls, and on the huge carved chimney-pieces which rose almost to +the ceilings; and the marble tables and the inlaid oak staircase +still spoke of the former grandeur of the court. Mrs. Sally +corresponded well with the date of her mansion, although she +troubled herself little with its dignity. She was thoroughly of the +old school, and had a most comfortable contempt for the new: rose +at four in winter and summer, breakfasted at six, dined at eleven in +the forenoon, supped at five, and was regularly in bed before eight, +except when the hay-time or the harvest imperiously required her to +sit up till sunset, a necessity to which she submitted with no very +good grace. To a deviation from these hours, and to the modern +iniquities of white aprons, cotton stockings, and muslin +handkerchiefs (Mrs. Sally herself always wore check, black worsted, +and a sort of yellow compound which she was wont to call 'susy'), +together with the invention of drill plough and thrashing-machines, +and other agricultural novelties, she failed not to attribute all +the mishaps or misdoings of the whole parish. The last-mentioned +discovery especially aroused her indignation. Oh to hear her +descant on the merits of the flail, wielded by a stout right arm, +such as she had known in her youth (for by her account there was as +great a deterioration in bones and sinews as in the other implements +of husbandry), was enough to make the very inventor break his +machine. She would even take up her favourite instrument, and +thrash the air herself by way of illustrating her argument, and, to +say truth, few men in these degenerate days could have matched the +stout, brawny, muscular limb which Mrs. Sally displayed at +sixty-five. + +In spite of this contumacious rejection of agricultural +improvements, the world went well with her at Court Farm. A good +landlord, an easy rent, incessant labour, unremitting frugality, and +excellent times, insured a regular though moderate profit; and she +lived on, grumbling and prospering, flourishing and complaining, +till two misfortunes befell her at once--her father died, and her +lease expired. The loss of her father although a bedridden man, +turned of ninety, who could not in the course of nature have been +expected to live long, was a terrible shock to a daughter, who was +not so much younger as to be without fears for her own life, and who +had besides been so used to nursing the good old man, and looking to +his little comforts, that she missed him as a mother would miss an +ailing child. The expiration of the lease was a grievance and a +puzzle of a different nature. Her landlord would have willingly +retained his excellent tenant, but not on the terms on which she +then held the land, which had not varied for fifty years; so that +poor Mrs. Sally had the misfortune to find rent rising and prices +sinking both at the same moment--a terrible solecism in political +economy. Even this, however, I believe she would have endured, +rather than have quitted the house where she was born, and to which +all her ways and notions were adapted, had not a priggish steward, +as much addicted to improvement and reform as she was to precedent +and established usages, insisted on binding her by lease to spread a +certain number of loads of chalk on every field. This tremendous +innovation, for never had that novelty in manure whitened the crofts +and pightles of Court Farm, decided her at once. She threw the +proposals into the fire, and left the place in a week. + +Her choice of a habitation occasioned some wonder, and much +amusement in our village world. To be sure, upon the verge of +seventy, an old maid may be permitted to dispense with the more +rigid punctilio of her class, but Mrs. Sally had always been so +tenacious on the score of character, so very a prude, so determined +an avoider of the 'men folk' (as she was wont contemptuously to call +them), that we all were conscious of something like astonishment, on +finding that she and her little handmaid had taken up their abode in +one end of a spacious farmhouse belonging to the bluff old bachelor, +George Robinson, of the Lea. Now Farmer Robinson was quite as +notorious for his aversion to petticoated things, as Mrs. Sally for +her hatred to the unfeathered bipeds who wear doublet and hose, so +that there was a little astonishment in that quarter too, and plenty +of jests, which the honest farmer speedily silenced, by telling all +who joked on the subject that he had given his lodger fair warning, +that, let people say what they would, he was quite determined not to +marry her: so that if she had any views that way, it would be +better for her to go elsewhere. This declaration, which must be +admitted to have been more remarkable for frankness than civility, +made, however, no ill impression on Mrs. Sally. To the farmer's she +went, and at his house she lives still, with her little maid, her +tabby cat, a decrepit sheep-dog, and much of the lumber of Court +Farm, which she could not find in her heart to part from. There she +follows her old ways and her old hours, untempted by matrimony, and +unassailed (as far as I hear) by love or by scandal, with no other +grievance than an occasional dearth of employment for herself and +her young lass (even pewter dishes do not always want scouring), and +now and then a twinge of the rheumatism. + +Here she is, that good relique of the olden time--for, in spite of +her whims and prejudices, a better and a kinder woman never lived-- +here she is, with the hood of her red cloak pulled over her close +black bonnet, of that silk which once (it may be presumed) was +fashionable, since it is still called mode, and her whole stout +figure huddled up in a miscellaneous and most substantial covering +of thick petticoats, gowns, aprons, shawls, and cloaks--a weight +which it requires the strength of a thrasher to walk under--here she +is, with her square honest visage, and her loud frank voice;--and we +hold a pleasant disjointed chat of rheumatisms and early chickens, +bad weather, and hats with feathers in them;--the last exceedingly +sore subject being introduced by poor Jane Davis (a cousin of Mrs. +Sally), who, passing us in a beaver bonnet, on her road from school, +stopped to drop her little curtsy, and was soundly scolded for her +civility. Jane, who is a gentle, humble, smiling lass, about twelve +years old, receives so many rebukes from her worthy relative, and +bears them so meekly, that I should not wonder if they were to be +followed by a legacy: I sincerely wish they may. Well, at last we +said good-bye; when, on inquiring my destination, and hearing that I +was bent +to the ten-acre copse (part of the farm which she ruled so long), +she stopped me to tell a dismal story of two sheep-stealers who, +sixty years ago, were found hidden in that copse, and only taken +after great difficulty and resistance, and the maiming of a +peace-officer.--'Pray don't go there, Miss! For mercy's sake don't +be so venturesome! Think if they should kill you!' were the last +words of Mrs. Sally. + +Many thanks for her care and kindness! But, without being at all +foolhardy in general, I have no great fear of the sheep-stealers of +sixty years ago. Even if they escaped hanging for that exploit, I +should greatly doubt their being in case to attempt another. So on +we go: down the short shady lane, and out on the pretty retired +green, shut in by fields and hedgerows, which we must cross to reach +the copse. How lively this green nook is to-day, half covered with +cows, and horses, and sheep! And how glad these frolicsome +greyhounds are to exchange the hard gravel of the high road for this +pleasant short turf, which seems made for their gambols! How +beautifully they are at play, chasing each other round and round in +lessening circles, darting off at all kinds of angles, crossing and +recrossing May, and trying to win her sedateness into a game at +romps, turning round on each other with gay defiance, pursuing the +cows and the colts, leaping up as if to catch the crows in their +flight;--all in their harmless and innocent--'Ah, wretches! +villains! rascals! four-footed mischiefs! canine plagues! Saladin! +Brindle!'--They are after the sheep--'Saladin, I say!'--They have +actually singled out that pretty spotted lamb--'Brutes, if I catch +you! Saladin! Brindle!' We shall be taken up for sheep-stealing +presently ourselves. They have chased the poor little lamb into a +ditch, and are mounting guard over it, standing at bay.--'Ah, +wretches, I have you now! for shame, Saladin! Get away, Brindle! +See how good May is. Off with you, brutes! For shame! For shame!' +and brandishing a handkerchief, which could hardly be an efficient +instrument of correction, I succeeded in driving away the two +puppies, who after all meant nothing more than play, although it was +somewhat rough, and rather too much in the style of the old fable of +the boys and the frogs. May is gone after them, perhaps to scold +them: for she has been as grave as a judge during the whole +proceeding, keeping ostentatiously close to me, and taking no part +whatever in the mischief. + +The poor little pretty lamb! here it lies on the bank quite +motionless, frightened I believe to death, for certainly those +villains never touched it. It does not stir. Does it breathe? Oh +yes, it does! It is alive, safe enough. Look, it opens its eyes, +and, finding the coast clear and its enemies far away, it springs up +in a moment and gallops to its dam, who has stood bleating the whole +time at a most respectful distance. Who would suspect a lamb of so +much simple cunning? I really thought the pretty thing was dead-- +and now how glad the ewe is to recover her curling spotted little +one! How fluttered they look! Well! this adventure has flurried me +too; between fright and running, I warrant you my heart beats as +fast as the lamb's. + +Ah! here is the shameless villain Saladin, the cause of the +commotion, thrusting his slender nose into my hand to beg pardon and +make up! 'Oh wickedest of soldans! Most iniquitous pagan! Soul of +a Turk!'--but there is no resisting the good-humoured creature's +penitence. I must pat him. 'There! there! Now we will go to the +copse; I am sure we shall find no worse malefactors than ourselves-- +shall we, May?--and the sooner we get out of sight of the sheep the +better; for Brindle seems meditating another attack. Allons, +messieurs, over this gate, across this meadow, and here is the +copse.' + +How boldly that superb ash-tree with its fine silver bark rises from +the bank, and what a fine entrance it makes with the holly beside +it, which also deserves to be called a tree! But here we are in the +copse. Ah! only one half of the underwood was cut last year, and +the other is at its full growth: hazel, brier, woodbine, bramble, +forming one impenetrable thicket, and almost uniting with the lower +branches of the elms, and oaks, and beeches, which rise at regular +distances overhead. No foot can penetrate that dense and thorny +entanglement; but there is a walk all round by the side of the wide +sloping bank, walk and bank and copse carpeted with primroses, whose +fresh and balmy odour impregnates the very air. Oh how exquisitely +beautiful! and it is not the primroses only, those gems of flowers, +but the natural mosaic of which they form a part; that network of +ground-ivy, with its lilac blossoms and the subdued tint of its +purplish leaves, those rich mosses, those enamelled wild hyacinths, +those spotted arums, and above all those wreaths of ivy linking all +those flowers together with chains of leaves more beautiful than +blossoms, whose white veins seem swelling amidst the deep green or +splendid brown;--it is the whole earth that is so beautiful! Never +surely were primroses so richly set, and never did primroses better +deserve such a setting. There they are of their own lovely yellow, +the hue to which they have given a name, the exact tint of the +butterfly that overhangs them (the first I have seen this year! can +spring really be coming at last?)--sprinkled here and there with +tufts of a reddish purple, and others of the purest white, as some +accident of soil affects that strange and inscrutable operation of +nature, the colouring of flowers. Oh how fragrant they are, and how +pleasant it is to sit in this sheltered copse, listening to the fine +creaking of the wind amongst the branches, the most unearthly of +sounds, with this gay tapestry under our feet, and the wood-pigeons +flitting from tree to tree, and mixing the deep note of love with +the elemental music. + +Yes! spring is coming. Wood-pigeons, butterflies, and sweet +flowers, all give token of the sweetest of the seasons. Spring is +coming. The hazel stalks are swelling and putting forth their pale +tassels, the satin palms with their honeyed odours are out on the +willow, and the last lingering winter berries are dropping from the +hawthorn, and making way for the bright and blossomy leaves. + + + +THE WOOD. + +April 20th.--Spring is actually come now, with the fulness and +almost the suddenness of a northern summer. To-day is completely +April;--clouds and sunshine, wind and showers; blossoms on the +trees, grass in the fields, swallows by the ponds, snakes in the +hedgerows, nightingales in the thickets, and cuckoos everywhere. My +young friend Ellen G. is going with me this evening to gather +wood-sorrel. She never saw that most elegant plant, and is so +delicate an artist that the introduction will be a mutual benefit; +Ellen will gain a subject worthy of her pencil, and the pretty weed +will live;--no small favour to a flower almost as transitory as the +gum cistus: duration is the only charm which it wants, and that +Ellen will give it. The weather is, to be sure, a little +threatening, but we are not people to mind the weather when we have +an object in view; we shall certainly go in quest of the +wood-sorrel, and will take May, provided we can escape May's +followers; for since the adventure of the lamb, Saladin has had an +affair with a gander, furious in defence of his goslings, in which +rencontre the gander came off conqueror; and as geese abound in the +wood to which we are going (called by the country people the Pinge), +and the victory may not always incline to the right side, I should +be very sorry to lead the Soldan to fight his battles over again. +We will take nobody but May. + +So saying, we proceeded on our way through winding lanes, between +hedgerows tenderly green, till we reached the hatch-gate, with the +white cottage beside it embosomed in fruit-trees, which forms the +entrance to the Pinge, and in a moment the whole scene was before +our eyes. + +'Is not this beautiful, Ellen?' The answer could hardly be other +than a glowing rapid 'Yes!'--A wood is generally a pretty place; but +this wood--Imagine a smaller forest, full of glades and sheep-walks, +surrounded by irregular cottages with their blooming orchards, a +clear stream winding about the brakes, and a road intersecting it, +and giving life and light to the picture; and you will have a faint +idea of the Pinge. Every step was opening a new point of view, a +fresh combination of glade and path and thicket. The accessories +too were changing every moment. Ducks, geese, pigs, and children, +giving way, as we advanced into the wood, to sheep and forest +ponies; and they again disappearing as we became more entangled in +its mazes, till we heard nothing but the song of the nightingale, +and saw only the silent flowers. + +What a piece of fairy land! The tall elms overhead just bursting +into tender vivid leaf, with here and there a hoary oak or a +silver-barked beech, every twig swelling with the brown buds, and +yet not quite stripped of the tawny foliage of autumn; tall hollies +and hawthorn beneath, with their crisp brilliant leaves mixed with +the white blossoms of the sloe, and woven together with garlands of +woodbines and wild-briers;--what a fairy land! + +Primroses, cowslips, pansies, and the regular open-eyed white +blossom of the wood anemone (or, to use the more elegant Hampshire +name, the windflower), were set under our feet as thick as daisies +in a meadow; but the pretty weed that we came to seek was coyer; and +Ellen began to fear that we had mistaken the place or the season.-- +At last she had herself the pleasure of finding it under a brake of +holly--'Oh, look! look! I am sure that this is the wood-sorrel! +Look at the pendent white flower, shaped like a snowdrop and veined +with purple streaks, and the beautiful trefoil leaves folded like a +heart,--some, the young ones, so vividly yet tenderly green that the +foliage of the elm and the hawthorn would show dully at their side,- +-others of a deeper tint, and lined, as it were, with a rich and +changeful purple!--Don't you see them?' pursued my dear young +friend, who is a delightful piece of life and sunshine, and was half +inclined to scold me for the calmness with which, amused by her +enthusiasm, I stood listening to her ardent exclamations--'Don't you +see them? Oh how beautiful! and in what quantity! what profusion! +See how the dark shade of the holly sets off the light and delicate +colouring of the flower!--And see that other bed of them springing +from the rich moss in the roots of that old beech-tree! Pray, let +us gather some. Here are baskets.' So, quickly and carefully we +began gathering, leaves, blossoms, roots and all, for the plant is +so fragile that it will not brook separation;--quickly and carefully +we gathered, encountering divers petty misfortunes in spite of all +our care, now caught by the veil in a holly bush, now hitching our +shawls in a bramble, still gathering on, in spite of scratched +fingers, till we had nearly filled our baskets and began to talk of +our departure:-- + +'But where is May? May! May! No going home without her. May! +Here she comes galloping, the beauty!'--(Ellen is almost as fond of +May as I am.)--'What has she got in her mouth? that rough, round, +brown substance which she touches so tenderly? What can it be? A +bird's nest? Naughty May!' + +'No! as I live, a hedgehog! Look, Ellen, how it has coiled itself +into a thorny ball! Off with it, May! Don't bring it to me!'--And +May, somewhat reluctant to part with her prickly prize, however +troublesome of carriage, whose change of shape seemed to me to have +puzzled her sagacity more than any event I ever witnessed, for in +general she has perfectly the air of understanding all that is going +forward--May at last dropt the hedgehog; continuing, however, to pat +it with her delicate cat-like paw, cautiously and daintily applied, +and caught back suddenly and rapidly after every touch, as if her +poor captive had been a red-hot coal. Finding that these pats +entirely failed in solving the riddle (for the hedgehog shammed +dead, like the lamb the other day, and appeared entirely +motionless), she gave him so spirited a nudge with her pretty black +nose, that she not only turned him over, but sent him rolling some +little way along the turfy path,--an operation which that sagacious +quadruped endured with the most perfect passiveness, the most +admirable non-resistance. No wonder that May's discernment was at +fault, I myself, if I had not been aware of the trick, should have +said that the ugly rough thing which she was trundling along, like a +bowl or a cricket-ball, was an inanimate substance, something devoid +of sensation and of will. At last my poor pet, thoroughly perplexed +and tired out, fairly relinquished the contest, and came slowly +away, turning back once or twice to look at the object of her +curiosity, as if half inclined to return and try the event of +another shove. The sudden flight of a wood-pigeon effectually +diverted her attention; and Ellen amused herself by fancying how the +hedgehog was scuttling away, till our notice was also attracted by a +very different object. + +We had nearly threaded the wood, and were approaching an open grove +of magnificent oaks on the other side, when sounds other than of +nightingales burst on our ear, the deep and frequent strokes of the +woodman's axe, and emerging from the Pinge we discovered the havoc +which that axe had committed. Above twenty of the finest trees lay +stretched on the velvet turf. There they lay in every shape and +form of devastation: some, bare trunks stripped ready for the +timber carriage, with the bark built up in long piles at the side; +some with the spoilers busy about them, stripping, hacking, hewing; +others with their noble branches, their brown and fragrant shoots +all fresh as if they were alive--majestic corses, the slain of +to-day! The grove was like a field of battle. The young lads who +were stripping the bark, the very children who were picking up the +chips, seemed awed and silent, as if conscious that death was around +them. The nightingales sang faintly and interruptedly--a few low +frightened notes like a requiem. + +Ah! here we are at the very scene of murder, the very tree that they +are felling; they have just hewn round the trunk with those +slaughtering axes, and are about to saw it asunder. After all, it +is a fine and thrilling operation, as the work of death usually is. +Into how grand an attitude was that young man thrown as he gave the +final strokes round the root; and how wonderful is the effect of +that supple and apparently powerless saw, bending like a riband, and +yet overmastering that giant of the woods, conquering and +overthrowing that thing of life! Now it has passed half through the +trunk, and the woodman has begun to calculate which way the tree +will fall; he drives a wedge to direct its course;--now a few more +movements of the noiseless saw; and then a larger wedge. See how +the branches tremble! Hark how the trunk begins to crack! Another +stroke of the huge hammer on the wedge, and the tree quivers, as +with a mortal agony, shakes, reels, and falls. How slow, and +solemn, and awful it is! How like to death, to human death in its +grandest form! Caesar in the Capitol, Seneca in the bath, could not +fall more sublimely than that oak. + +Even the heavens seem to sympathise with the devastation. The +clouds have gathered into one thick low canopy, dark and vapoury as +the smoke which overhangs London; the setting sun is just gleaming +underneath with a dim and bloody glare, and the crimson rays +spreading upward with a lurid and portentous grandeur, a subdued and +dusky glow, like the light reflected on the sky from some vast +conflagration. The deep flush fades away, and the rain begins to +descend; and we hurry homeward rapidly, yet sadly, forgetful alike +of the flowers, the hedgehog, and the wetting, thinking and talking +only of the fallen tree. + + + +THE DELL. + +May 2nd.--A delicious evening;--bright sunshine; light summer air; a +sky almost cloudless; and a fresh yet delicate verdure on the hedges +and in the fields;--an evening that seems made for a visit to my +newly-discovered haunt, the mossy dell, one of the most beautiful +spots in the neighbourhood, which after passing, times out of +number, the field which it terminates, we found out about two months +ago from the accident of May's killing a rabbit there. May has had +a fancy for the place ever since; and so have I. + +Thither accordingly we bend our way;--through the village;--up the +hill;--along the common;--past the avenue;--across the bridge; and +by the hill. How deserted the road is to-night! We have not seen a +single acquaintance, except poor blind Robert, laden with his sack +of grass plucked from the hedges, and the little boy that leads him. +A singular division of labour! Little Jem guides Robert to the +spots where the long grass grows, and tells him where it is most +plentiful; and then the old man cuts it close to the roots, and +between them they fill the sack, and sell the contents in the +village. Half the cows in the street--for our baker, our +wheelwright, and our shoemaker has each his Alderney--owe the best +part of their maintenance to blind Robert's industry. + +Here we are at the entrance of the cornfield which leads to the +dell, and which commands so fine a view of the Loddon, the mill, the +great farm, with its picturesque outbuildings, and the range of +woody hills beyond. It is impossible not to pause a moment at that +gate, the landscape, always beautiful, is so suited to the season +and the hour,--so bright, and gay, and spring-like. But May, who +has the chance of another rabbit in her pretty head, has galloped +forward to the dingle, and poor May, who follows me so faithfully in +all my wanderings, has a right to a little indulgence in hers. So +to the dingle we go. + +At the end of the field, which when seen from the road seems +terminated by a thick dark coppice, we come suddenly to the edge of +a ravine, on one side fringed with a low growth of alder, birch, and +willow, on the other mossy, turfy, and bare, or only broken by +bright tufts of blossomed broom. One or two old pollards almost +conceal the winding road that leads down the descent, by the side of +which a spring as bright as crystal runs gurgling along. The dell +itself is an irregular piece of broken ground, in some parts very +deep, intersected by two or three high banks of equal irregularity, +now abrupt and bare, and rocklike, now crowned with tufts of the +feathery willow or magnificent old thorns. Everywhere the earth is +covered by short, fine turf, mixed with mosses, soft, beautiful, and +various, and embossed with the speckled leaves and lilac flowers of +the arum, the paler blossoms of the common orchis, the enamelled +blue of the wild hyacinth, so splendid in this evening light, and +large tufts of oxslips and cowslips rising like nosegays from the +short turf. + +The ground on the other side of the dell is much lower than the +field through which we came, so that it is mainly to the +labyrinthine intricacy of these high banks that it owes its singular +character of wildness and variety. Now we seem hemmed in by those +green cliffs, shut out from all the world, with nothing visible but +those verdant mounds and the deep blue sky; now by some sudden turn +we get a peep at an adjoining meadow, where the sheep are lying, +dappling its sloping surface like the small clouds on the summer +heaven. Poor harmless, quiet creatures, how still they are! Some +socially lying side by side; some grouped in threes and fours; some +quite apart. Ah! there are lambs amongst them--pretty, pretty +lambs--nestled in by their mothers. Soft, quiet, sleepy things! +Not all so quiet, though! There is a party of these young lambs as +wide awake as heart can desire; half a dozen of them playing +together, frisking, dancing, leaping, butting, and crying in the +young voice, which is so pretty a diminutive of the full-grown +bleat. How beautiful they are with their innocent spotted faces, +their mottled feet, their long curly tails, and their light flexible +forms, frolicking like so many kittens, but with a gentleness, an +assurance of sweetness and innocence, which no kitten, nothing that +ever is to be a cat, can have. How complete and perfect is their +enjoyment of existence! Ah! little rogues! your play has been too +noisy; you have awakened your mammas; and two or three of the old +ewes are getting up; and one of them marching gravely to the troop +of lambs has selected her own, given her a gentle butt, and trotted +off; the poor rebuked lamb following meekly, but every now and then +stopping and casting a longing look at its playmates; who, after a +moment's awed pause, had resumed their gambols; whilst the stately +dame every now and then looked back in her turn, to see that her +little one was following. At last she lay down, and the lamb by her +side. I never saw so pretty a pastoral scene in my life.* + +*I have seen one which affected me much more. Walking in the +Church-lane with one of the young ladies of the vicarage, we met a +large flock of sheep, with the usual retinue of shepherds and dogs. +Lingering after them and almost out of sight, we encountered a +straggling ewe, now trotting along, now walking, and every now and +then stopping to look back, and bleating. A little behind her came +a lame lamb, bleating occasionally, as if in answer to its dam, and +doing its very best to keep up with her. It was a lameness of both +the fore-feet; the knees were bent, and it seemed to walk on the +very edge of the hoof--on tip-toe, if I may venture such an +expression. My young friend thought that the lameness proceeded +from original malformation, I am rather of opinion that it was +accidental, and that the poor creature was wretchedly foot-sore. +However that might be, the pain and difficulty with which it took +every step were not to be mistaken; and the distress and fondness of +the mother, her perplexity as the flock passed gradually out of +sight, the effort with which the poor lamb contrived to keep up a +sort of trot, and their mutual calls and lamentations were really so +affecting, that Ellen and I, although not at all lachrymose sort of +people, had much ado not to cry. We could not find a boy to carry +the lamb, which was too big for us to manage;--but I was quite sure +that the ewe would not desert it, and as the dark was coming on, we +both trusted that the shepherds on folding their flock would miss +them and return for them;--and so I am happy to say it proved. + +Another turning of the dell gives a glimpse of the dark coppice by +which it is backed, and from which we are separated by some marshy, +rushy ground, where the springs have formed into a pool, and where +the moor-hen loves to build her nest. Ay, there is one scudding +away now;--I can hear her plash into the water, and the rustling of +her wings amongst the rushes. This is the deepest part of the wild +dingle. How uneven the ground is! Surely these excavations, now so +thoroughly clothed with vegetation, must originally have been huge +gravel pits; there is no other way of accounting for the labyrinth, +for they do dig gravel in such capricious meanders; but the quantity +seems incredible. Well! there is no end of guessing! We are +getting amongst the springs, and must turn back. Round this corner, +where on ledges like fairy terraces the orchises and arums grow, and +we emerge suddenly on a new side of the dell, just fronting the +small homestead of our good neighbour Farmer Allen. + +This rustic dwelling belongs to what used to be called in this part +of the country 'a little bargain': thirty or forty acres, perhaps, +of arable land, which the owner and his sons cultivated themselves, +whilst the wife and daughters assisted in the husbandry, and eked +out the slender earnings by the produce of the dairy, the poultry +yard, and the orchard;--an order of cultivators now passing rapidly +away, but in which much of the best part of the English character, +its industry, its frugality, its sound sense, and its kindness might +be found. Farmer Allen himself is an excellent specimen, the +cheerful venerable old man with his long white hair, and his bright +grey eye, and his wife is a still finer. They have had a hard +struggle to win through the world and keep their little property +undivided; but good management and good principles, and the +assistance afforded them by an admirable son, who left our village a +poor 'prentice boy, and is now a partner in a great house in London +have enabled them to overcome all the difficulties of these trying +times, and they are now enjoying the peaceful evenings of a +well-spent life as free from care and anxiety as their best friends +could desire. + +Ah! there is Mr. Allen in the orchard, the beautiful orchard, with +its glorious gardens of pink and white, its pearly pear-blossoms and +coral apple-buds. What a flush of bloom it is! How brightly +delicate it appears, thrown into strong relief by the dark house and +the weather-stained barn, in this soft evening light! The very +grass is strewed with the snowy petals of the pear and the cherry. +And there sits Mrs. Allen, feeding her poultry, with her three +little grand-daughters from London, pretty fairies from three years +old to five (only two-and-twenty months elapsed between the birth of +the eldest and the youngest) playing round her feet. + +Mrs. Allen, my dear Mrs. Allen, has been that rare thing a beauty, +and although she be now an old woman I had almost said that she is +so still. Why should I not say so? Nobleness of feature and +sweetness of expression are surely as delightful in age as in youth. +Her face and figure are much like those which are stamped indelibly +on the memory of every one who ever saw that grand specimen of +woman--Mrs. Siddons. The outline of Mrs. Allen's face is exactly +the same; but there is more softness, more gentleness, a more +feminine composure in the eye and in the smile. Mrs. Allen never +played Lady Macbeth. Her hair, almost as black as at twenty, is +parted on her large fair forehead, and combed under her exquisitely +neat and snowy cap; a muslin neckerchief, a grey stuff gown and a +white apron complete the picture. + +There she sits under an old elder-tree which flings its branches +over her like a canopy, whilst the setting sun illumines her +venerable figure and touches the leaves with an emerald light; there +she sits, placid and smiling, with her spectacles in her hand and a +measure of barley on her lap, into which the little girls are +dipping their chubby hands and scattering the corn amongst the ducks +and chickens with unspeakable glee. But those ingrates the poultry +don't seem so pleased and thankful as they ought to be; they +mistrust their young feeders. All domestic animals dislike +children, partly from an instinctive fear of their tricks and their +thoughtlessness; partly, I suspect, from jealousy. Jealousy seems a +strange tragic passion to attribute to the inmates of the basse +cour,--but only look at that strutting fellow of a bantam cock +(evidently a favourite), who sidles up to his old mistress with an +air half affronted and half tender, turning so scornfully from the +barley-corns which Annie is flinging towards him, and say if he be +not as jealous as Othello? Nothing can pacify him but Mrs. Allen's +notice and a dole from her hand. See, she is calling to him and +feeding him, and now how he swells out his feathers, and flutters +his wings, and erects his glossy neck, and struts and crows and +pecks, proudest and happiest of bantams, the pet and glory of the +poultry yard! + +In the meantime my own pet May, who has all this while been peeping +into every hole, and penetrating every nook and winding of the dell, +in hopes to find another rabbit, has returned to my side, and is +sliding her snake-like head into my hand, at once to invite the +caress which she likes so well, and to intimate, with all due +respect, that it is time to go home. The setting sun gives the same +warning; and in a moment we are through the dell, the field, and the +gate, past the farm and the mill, and hanging over the bridge that +crosses the Loddon river. + +What a sunset! how golden! how beautiful! The sun just +disappearing, and the narrow liny clouds, which a few minutes ago +lay like soft vapoury streaks along the horizon, lighted up with a +golden splendour that the eye can scarcely endure, and those still +softer clouds which floated above them wreathing and curling into a +thousand fantastic forms, as thin and changeful as summer smoke, now +defined and deepened into grandeur, and edged with ineffable, +insufferable light! Another minute and the brilliant orb totally +disappears, and the sky above grows every moment more varied and +more beautiful as the dazzling golden lines are mixed with glowing +red and gorgeous purple, dappled with small dark specks, and mingled +with such a blue as the egg of the hedge-sparrow. To look up at +that glorious sky, and then to see that magnificent picture +reflected in the clear and lovely Loddon water, is a pleasure never +to be described and never forgotten. My heart swells and my eyes +fill as I write of it, and think of the immeasurable majesty of +nature, and the unspeakable goodness of God, who has spread an +enjoyment so pure, so peaceful, and so intense before the meanest +and the lowliest of His creatures. + + + +THE COWSLIP-BALL. + +May 16th.--There are moments in life when, without any visible or +immediate cause, the spirits sink and fail, as it were, under the +mere pressure of existence: moments of unaccountable depression, +when one is weary of one's very thoughts, haunted by images that +will not depart--images many and various, but all painful; friends +lost, or changed, or dead; hopes disappointed even in their +accomplishment; fruitless regrets, powerless wishes, doubt and fear, +and self-distrust, and self-disapprobation. They who have known +these feelings (and who is there so happy as not to have known some +of them?) will understand why Alfieri became powerless, and +Froissart dull; and why even needle-work, the most effectual +sedative, that grand soother and composer of woman's distress, fails +to comfort me to-day. I will go out into the air this cool, +pleasant afternoon, and try what that will do. I fancy that +exercise or exertion of any kind, is the true specific for +nervousness. 'Fling but a stone, the giant dies.' I will go to the +meadows, the beautiful meadows! and I will have my materials of +happiness, Lizzy and May, and a basket for flowers, and we will make +a cowslip-ball. 'Did you ever see a cowslip-ball, my Lizzy?'-- +'No.'--'Come away, then; make haste! run, Lizzy!' + +And on we go, fast, fast! down the road, across the lea, past the +workhouse, along by the great pond, till we slide into the deep +narrow lane, whose hedges seem to meet over the water, and win our +way to the little farmhouse at the end. 'Through the farmyard, +Lizzy; over the gate; never mind the cows; they are quiet enough.'-- +'I don't mind 'em,' said Miss Lizzy, boldly and truly, and with a +proud affronted air, displeased at being thought to mind anything, +and showing by her attitude and manner some design of proving her +courage by an attack on the largest of the herd, in the shape of a +pull by the tail. 'I don't mind 'em.'--'I know you don't, Lizzy; +but let them alone, and don't chase the turkey-cock. Come to me, my +dear!' and, for a wonder, Lizzy came. + +In the meantime, my other pet, Mayflower, had also gotten into a +scrape. She had driven about a huge unwieldy sow, till the animal's +grunting had disturbed the repose of a still more enormous +Newfoundland dog, the guardian of the yard. Out he sallied, +growling, from the depth of his kennel, erecting his tail, and +shaking his long chain. May's attention was instantly diverted from +the sow to this new playmate, friend or foe, she cared not which; +and he of the kennel, seeing his charge unhurt, and out of danger, +was at leisure to observe the charms of his fair enemy, as she +frolicked 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 inmost recesses of his habitation, and would not even +approach her when she stood right before the entrance. 'You are +properly served, May. Come along, Lizzy. Across this wheatfield, +and now over the gate. Stop! let me lift you down. No jumping, no +breaking of necks, Lizzy!' And here we are in the meadows, and out +of the world. Robinson Crusoe, in his lonely island, had scarcely a +more complete, or a more beautiful solitude. + +These meadows consist of a double row of small enclosures of rich +grass-land, a mile or two in length, sloping down from high arable +grounds on either side, to a little nameless brook that winds +between them with a course which, in its infinite variety, +clearness, and rapidity, seems to emulate the bold rivers of the +north, of whom, far more than of our lazy southern streams, our +rivulet presents a miniature likeness. Never was water more +exquisitely tricksy:--now darting over the bright pebbles, sparkling +and flashing in the light with a bubbling music, as sweet and wild +as the song of the woodlark; now stretching quietly along, giving +back the rich tufts of the golden marsh-marigolds which grow on its +margin; now sweeping round a fine reach of green grass, rising +steeply into a high 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 unwetted; 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 surface for the summer flies. +Izaak Walton would have loved our brook and our quiet meadows; they +breathe the very spirit of his own peacefulness, a soothing quietude +that sinks into the soul. There is no path through them, not one; +we might wander a whole spring day, and not see a trace of human +habitation. They belong to a number of small 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 water 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 Newfoundland, is added to the +other charms of this enchanting scenery; a strange pleasure it is, +when one so poor as I can feel it! Perhaps it is felt most by the +poor, with the rich it may be less intense--too much diffused and +spread out, becoming thin by expansion, like leaf-gold; the little +of the poor may be not only more precious, but more pleasant to +them: certain that bit of grassy and blossomy earth, with its green +knolls and tufted bushes, its old pollards wreathed with ivy, and +its bright and babbling waters, is very dear to me. But I must +always have loved these meadows, so fresh, and cool, and delicious +to the eye and to the tread, full of cowslips, and of all vernal +flowers: Shakspeare's 'Song of Spring' bursts irrepressibly from +our lips as we step on them. + +*Walking along these meadows one bright sunny afternoon, a year or +two back, and rather later in the season, I had an opportunity of +noticing a curious circumstance in natural history. Standing close +to the edge of the stream, I remarked a singular appearance on a +large tuft of flags. It looked like bunches of flowers, the leaves +of which seemed dark, yet transparent, intermingled with brilliant +tubes of bright blue or shining green. On examining this phenomenon +more closely, it turned out to be several clusters of dragon-flies, +just emerged from their deformed chrysalis state, and still torpid +and motionless from the wetness of their filmy wings. Half an hour +later we returned to the spot and they were gone. We had seen them +at the very moment when beauty was complete and animation dormant. +I have since found nearly a similar account of this curious process +in Mr. Bingley's very entertaining work, called 'Animal Biography.' + + 'When daisies pied and violets blue + And lady-smocks all silver-white + And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue + Do paint the meadows with delight, + The cuckoo then, on every tree--' + +'Cuckoo! cuckoo!' cried Lizzy, breaking in with her clear childish +voice; and immediately, as if at her call, the real bird, from a +neighbouring tree (for these meadows are dotted with timber like a +park), began to echo my lovely little girl, 'cuckoo! cuckoo!' I +have a prejudice very unpastoral and unpoetical (but I cannot help +it, I have many such) 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 succeeded completely. What scrambling, what shouting, +what glee from Lizzy! twenty cuckoos might have sung unheard whilst +she was pulling her own flowers, and stealing mine, and laughing, +screaming, and talking through all. + +At last the baskets were filled, and Lizzy declared victor: and +down we sat, on the brink of the stream, under a spreading hawthorn, +just disclosing its own pearly buds, and surrounded with the rich +and enamelled flowers of the wild hyacinth, blue and white, to make +our cowslip-ball. Every one knows the process: to nip off the tuft +of flowerets just below the top of the stalk, and hang each cluster +nicely balanced across a riband, till you have a long string like a +garland; then to press them closely together, and tie them tightly +up. We went on very prosperously, CONSIDERING; as people say of a +young lady's drawing, or a Frenchman's English, or a woman's +tragedy, or of the poor little dwarf who works without fingers, or +the ingenious sailor who writes with his toes, or generally of any +performance which is accomplished by means seemingly inadequate to +its production. To be sure we met with a few accidents. First, +Lizzy spoiled nearly all her cowslips by snapping them off too +short; so there was a fresh gathering; in the next place, May +overset my full basket, and sent the blossoms floating, like so many +fairy favours, down the brook; then, when we were going on pretty +steadily, just as we had made a superb wreath, and were thinking of +tying it together, Lizzy, who held the riband, caught a glimpse of a +gorgeous butterfly, all brown and red and purple, and, skipping off +to pursue the new object, let go her hold; so all our treasures were +abroad again. At last, however, by dint of taking a branch of alder +as a substitute for Lizzy, and hanging the basket in a pollard-ash, +out of sight of May, the cowslip-ball was finished. What a +concentration of fragrance and beauty it was! golden and sweet to +satiety! rich to sight, and touch, and smell! Lizzy was enchanted, +and ran off with her prize, hiding amongst the trees in the very +coyness of ecstasy, as if any human eye, even mine, would be a +restraint on her innocent raptures. + +In the meanwhile I sat listening, not to my enemy the cuckoo, but to +a whole concert of nightingales, scarcely interrupted by any meaner +bird, answering and vying with each other in those short delicious +strains which are to the ear as roses to the eye: 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 myself the beautiful story of the Lutist +and the Nightingale, from Ford's 'Lover's Melancholy.' Here it is. +Is there in English poetry anything finer? + + 'Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales + Which poets of an elder time have feign'd + To glorify their Tempe, bred in me + Desire of visiting Paradise. + To Thessaly I came, and living private, + Without acquaintance of more sweet companions + Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, + I day by day frequented silent groves + And solitary walks. One morning early + This accident encounter'd me: I heard + The sweetest and most ravishing contention + That art and nature ever were at strife in. + A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather + Indeed entranced my soul; as I stole nearer, + Invited by the melody, I saw + This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute + With strains of strange variety and harmony + Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge + To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds, + That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent, + Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too. + A nightingale, + Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes + The challenge; and for every several strain + The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down. + He could not run divisions with more art + Upon his quaking instrument than she, + The nightingale, did with her various notes + Reply to. + + Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last + Into a pretty anger, that a bird, + Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes + Should vie with him for mastery, whose study + Had busied many hours to perfect practice. + To end the controversy, in a rapture + Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, + So many voluntaries, and so quick, + That there was curiosity and cunning, + Concord in discord, lines of differing method + Meeting in one full centre of delight. + The bird (ordain'd to be + Music's first martyr) strove to imitate + These several sounds; which when her warbling throat + Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute, + And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness + To see the conqueror upon her hearse + To weep a funeral elegy of tears. + He look'd upon the trophies of his art, + Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes; then sigh'd, and cry'd + "Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge + This cruelty upon the author of it. + Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, + Shall never more betray a harmless peace + To an untimely end:" and in that sorrow, + As he was pashing it against a tree, + I suddenly stept in.' + +When I had finished the recitation of this exquisite passage, the +sky, which had been all the afternoon dull and heavy, began to look +more and more threatening; darker clouds, like wreaths of black +smoke, flew across the dead leaden tint; a cooler, damper air blew +over the meadows, and a few large heavy drops splashed in the water. +'We shall have a storm. Lizzy! May! where are ye? Quick, quick, +my Lizzy! run, run! faster, faster!' + +And off we ran; Lizzy not at all displeased at the thoughts of a +wetting, to which indeed she is almost as familiar as a duck; May, +on the other hand, peering up at the weather, and shaking her pretty +ears with manifest dismay. Of all animals, next to a cat, a +greyhound dreads rain. She might have escaped it; her light feet +would have borne her home long before the shower; but May is too +faithful for that, too true a comrade, understands too well the laws +of good-fellowship; so she waited for us. She did, to be sure, +gallop on before, and then stop and look back, and beckon, as it +were, with some scorn in her black eyes at the slowness of our +progress. We in the meanwhile got on as fast as we could, +encouraging and reproaching each other. 'Faster, my Lizzy! Oh, +what a bad runner!'--'Faster, faster! Oh, what a bad runner!' +echoed my saucebox. 'You are so fat, Lizzy, you make no way!'--'Ah! +who else is fat?' 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 poor May's +short glossy coat in a moment. And then, when we were wet to the +skin, the sun came out, actually the sun, as if to laugh at our +plight; and then, more provoking still, when the sun was shining, +and the shower over, came a maid and a boy to look after us, loaded +with cloaks and umbrellas enough to fence us against a whole day's +rain. Never mind! on we go, faster and faster; Lizzy obliged to be +most ignobly carried, having had the misfortune to lose a shoe in +the mud, which we left the boy to look after. + +Here we are at home--dripping; but glowing and laughing, and bearing +our calamity most 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 going 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 plume; but +when there is nothing in question but a white gown and a straw +bonnet, as was the case to-day, it is rather pleasant than not. The +little chill refreshes, and our enjoyment of the subsequent warmth +and dryness is positive and absolute. Besides, the stimulus and +exertion do good to the mind as well as body. How melancholy I was +all the morning! how cheerful I am now! Nothing like a shower-bath- +-a real shower-bath, such as Lizzy and May and I have undergone, to +cure low spirits. Try it, my dear readers, if ever ye be nervous--I +will answer for its success. + + + +THE OLD HOUSE AT ABERLEIGH. + +June 25th.--What a glowing glorious day! Summer in its richest +prime, noon in its most sparkling brightness, little white clouds +dappling the deep blue sky, and the sun, now partially veiled, and +now bursting through them with an intensity of light! It would not +do to walk to-day, professedly to walk,--we should be frightened at +the very sound! and yet it is probable that we may be beguiled into +a pretty long stroll before we return home. We are going to drive +to the old house at Aberleigh, to spend the morning under the shade +of those balmy firs, and amongst those luxuriant rose trees, and by +the side of that brimming Loddon river. 'Do not expect us before +six o'clock,' said I, as I left the house; 'Six at soonest!' added +my charming companion; and off we drove in our little pony chaise, +drawn by our old mare, and with the good humoured urchin, Henry's +successor, a sort of younger Scrub, who takes care of horse and +chaise, and cow and garden, for our charioteer. + +My comrade in this homely equipage was a young lady of high family +and higher endowments, to whom the novelty of the thing, and her own +naturalness of character and simplicity of taste, gave an +unspeakable enjoyment. She danced the little chaise up and down as +she got into it, and laughed for very glee like a child, Lizzy +herself could not have been more delighted. She praised the horse +and the driver, and the roads and the scenery, and gave herself +fully up to the enchantment of a rural excursion in the sweetest +weather of this sweet season. I enjoyed all this too; for the road +was pleasant to every sense, winding through narrow lanes, under +high elms, and between hedges garlanded with woodbine and rose +trees, whilst the air was scented with the delicious fragrance of +blossomed beans. I enjoyed it all,--but, I believe, my principal +pleasure was derived from my companion herself. + +Emily I. is a person whom it is a privilege to know. She is quite +like a creation of the older poets, and might pass for one of +Shakspeare's or Fletcher's women stepped into life; just as tender, +as playful, as gentle, and as kind. She is clever too, and has all +the knowledge and accomplishments that a carefully-conducted +education, acting on a mind of singular clearness and ductility, +matured and improved by the very best company, can bestow. But one +never thinks of her acquirements. It is the charming artless +character, the bewitching sweetness of manner, the real and +universal sympathy, the quick taste and the ardent feeling, that one +loves in Emily. She is Irish by birth, and has in perfection the +melting voice and soft caressing accent by which her fair +countrywomen are distinguished. Moreover she is pretty--I think her +beautiful, and so do all who have heard as well as seen her,--but +pretty, very pretty, all the world must confess; and perhaps that is +a distinction more enviable, because less envied, than the 'palmy +state' of beauty. Her prettiness is of the prettiest kind--that of +which the chief character is youthfulness. A short but pleasing +figure, all grace and symmetry, a fair blooming face, beaming with +intelligence and good-humour; the prettiest little feet and the +whitest hands in the world;--such is Emily I. + +She resides with her maternal grandmother, a venerable old lady, +slightly shaken with the palsy; and when together (and they are so +fondly attached to each other +that they are seldom parted), it is one of the loveliest +combinations of youth and age ever witnessed. There is no seeing +them without feeling an increase of respect and affection for both +grandmother and granddaughter--always one of the tenderest and most +beautiful of natural connections--as Richardson knew when he made +such exquisite use of it in his matchless book. I fancy that +grandmamma Shirley must have been just such another venerable lady +as Mrs. S., and our sweet Emily--Oh no! Harriet Byron is not half +good enough for her! There is nothing like her in the whole seven +volumes. + +But here we are at the bridge! Here we must alight! 'This is the +Loddon, Emily. Is it not a beautiful river? rising level with its +banks, so clear, and smooth, and peaceful, giving back the verdant +landscape and the bright blue sky, and bearing on its pellucid +stream the snowy water-lily, the purest of flowers, which sits +enthroned on its own cool leaves, looking chastity itself, like the +lady in Comus. That queenly flower becomes the water, and so do the +stately swans who are sailing so majestically down the stream, like +those who + + "'On St. Mary's lake + Float double, swan and shadow." + +We must dismount here, and leave Richard to take care of our +equipage under the shade of these trees, whilst we walk up to the +house:--See, there it is! We must cross this stile; there is no +other way now.' + +And crossing the stile we were immediately in what had been a drive +round a spacious park, and still retained something of the +character, though the park itself had long been broken into arable +fields,--and in full view of the Great House, a beautiful structure +of James the First's time, whose glassless windows and dilapidated +doors form a melancholy contrast with the strength and entireness of +the rich and massive front. + +The story of that ruin--for such it is--is always to me singularly +affecting. It is that of the decay of an ancient and distinguished +family, gradually reduced from the highest wealth and station to +actual poverty. The house and park, and a small estate around it, +were entailed on a distant cousin, and could not be alienated; and +the late owner, the last of his name and lineage, after long +struggling with debt and difficulty, farming his own lands, and +clinging to his magnificent home with a love of place almost as +tenacious as that of the younger Foscari, was at last forced to +abandon it, retired to a paltry lodging in a paltry town, and died +there about twenty years ago, broken-hearted. His successor, bound +by no ties of association to the spot, and rightly judging the +residence to be much too large for the diminished estate, +immediately sold the superb fixtures, and would have entirely taken +down the house, if, on making the attempt, the masonry had not been +found so solid that the materials were not worth the labour. A +great part, however, of one side is laid open, and the splendid +chambers, with their carving and gilding, are exposed to the wind +and rain--sad memorials of past grandeur! The grounds have been +left in a merciful neglect; the park, indeed, is broken up, the lawn +mown twice a year like a common hayfield, the grotto mouldering into +ruin, and the fishponds choked with rushes and aquatic plants; but +the shrubs and flowering trees are undestroyed, and have grown into +a magnificence of size and wildness of beauty, such as we may +imagine them to attain in their native forests. Nothing can exceed +their luxuriance, especially in the spring, when the lilac, and +laburnum, and double-cherry put forth their gorgeous blossoms. +There is a sweet sadness in the sight of such floweriness amidst +such desolation; it seems the triumph of nature over the destructive +power of man. The whole place, in that season more particularly, is +full of a soft and soothing melancholy, reminding me, I scarcely +know why, of some of the descriptions of natural scenery in the +novels of Charlotte Smith, which I read when a girl, and which, +perhaps, for that reason hang on my memory. + +But here we are, in the smooth grassy ride, on the top of a steep +turfy slope descending to the river, crowned with enormous firs and +limes of equal growth, looking across the winding waters into a +sweet peaceful landscape of quiet meadows, shut in by distant woods. +What a fragrance is in the air from the balmy fir trees and the +blossomed limes! What an intensity of odour! And what a murmur of +bees in the lime trees! What a coil those little winged people make +over our heads! And what a pleasant sound it is! the pleasantest of +busy sounds, that which comes associated with all that is good and +beautiful--industry and forecast, and sunshine and flowers. Surely +these lime trees might store a hundred hives; the very odour is of a +honeyed richness, cloying, satiating. + +Emily exclaimed in admiration as we stood under the deep, strong, +leafy shadow, and still more when honeysuckles trailed their +untrimmed profusion in our path, and roses, really trees, almost +intercepted our passage. + +'On, Emily! farther yet! Force your way by that jessamine--it will +yield; I will take care of this stubborn white rose bough.'--'Take +care of yourself! Pray take care,' said my fairest friend; 'let me +hold back the branches.'-- After we had won our way through the +strait, at some expense of veils and flounces, she stopped to +contemplate and admire the tall, graceful shrub, whose long thorny +stems, spreading in every direction, had opposed our progress, and +now waved their delicate clusters over our heads. 'Did I ever +think,' exclaimed she, 'of standing under the shadow of a white rose +tree! What an exquisite fragrance! And what a beautiful flower! so +pale, and white, and tender, and the petals thin and smooth as silk! +What rose is it?'--'Don't you know? Did you never see it before? +It is rare now, I believe, and seems rarer than it is, because it +only blossoms in very hot summers; but this, Emily, is the musk +rose,--that very musk rose of which Titania talks, and which is +worthy of Shakspeare and of her. Is it not?--No! do not smell to +it; it is less sweet so than other roses; but one cluster in a vase, +or even that bunch in your bosom, will perfume a large room, as it +does the summer air.'--'Oh! we will take twenty clusters,' said +Emily. 'I wish grandmamma were here! She talks so often of a musk +rose tree that grew against one end of her father's house. I wish +she were here to see this!' + +Echoing her wish, and well laden with musk roses, planted perhaps in +the days of Shakspeare, we reached the steps that led to a square +summer-house or banqueting-room, overhanging the river: the under +part was a boat-house, whose projecting roof, as well as the walls +and the very top of the little tower, was covered with ivy and +woodbine, and surmounted by tufted barberries, bird cherries, +acacias, covered with their snowy chains, and other pendent and +flowering trees. Beyond rose two poplars of unrivalled magnitude, +towering like stately columns over the dark tall firs, and giving a +sort of pillared and architectural grandeur to the scene. + +We were now close to the mansion; but it looked sad and desolate, +and the entrance, choked with brambles and nettles, seemed almost to +repel our steps. The summer-house, the beautiful summer-house, was +free and open, and inviting, commanding from the unglazed windows, +which hung high above the water, a reach of the river terminated by +a rustic mill. + +There we sat, emptying our little basket of fruit and country cakes, +till Emily was seized with a desire of viewing, from the other side +of the Loddon, the scenery which had so much enchanted her. 'I +must,' said she, 'take a sketch of the ivied boat-house, and of this +sweet room, and this pleasant window;--grandmamma would never be +able to walk from the road to see the place itself, but she must see +its likeness.' So forth we sallied, not forgetting the dear musk +roses. + +We had no way of reaching the desired spot but by retracing our +steps a mile, during the heat of the hottest hour of the day, and +then following the course of the river to an equal distance on the +other side; nor had we any materials for sketching, except the +rumpled paper which had contained our repast, and a pencil without a +point which I happened to have about me. But these small +difficulties are pleasures to gay and happy youth. Regardless of +such obstacles, the sweet Emily bounded on like a fawn, and I +followed delighting in her delight. The sun went in, and the walk +was delicious; a reviving coolness seemed to breathe over the water, +wafting the balmy scent of the firs and limes; we found a point of +view presenting the boat-house, the water, the poplars, and the +mill, in a most felicitous combination; the little straw fruit +basket made a capital table; and refreshed and sharpened and pointed +by our trusty lacquey's excellent knife (your country boy is never +without a good knife, it is his prime treasure), the pencil did +double duty;--first in the skilful hands of Emily, whose faithful +and spirited sketch does equal honour to the scene and to the +artist, and then in the humbler office of attempting a faint +transcript of my own impressions in the following sonnet:-- + + It was an hour of calmest noon, at day + Of ripest summer: o'er the deep blue sky + White speckled clouds came sailing peacefully, + Half-shrouding in a chequer'd veil the ray + Of the sun, too ardent else,--what time we lay + By the smooth Loddon, opposite the high + Steep bank, which as a coronet gloriously + Wore its rich crest of firs and lime trees, gay + With their pale tassels; while from out a bower + Of ivy (where those column'd poplars rear + Their heads) the ruin'd boat-house, like a tower, + Flung its deep shadow on the waters clear. + My Emily! forget not that calm hour, + Nor that fair scene, by thee made doubly dear! + + + +THE HARD SUMMER. + +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 Jupiter Pluvius of England, the watery St. Swithin; peering at +that scarce personage the sun, when he happens to make his +appearance, as intently as astronomers look after a comet, or the +common people stare at a balloon; exclaiming against the cold +weather, just as we used to exclaim against the warm. 'What a +change from last year!' is the first sentence you hear, go where you +may. Everybody remarks it, and everybody complains of it; and yet +in my mind it has its advantages, or at least its compensations, as +everything in nature has, if we would only take the trouble to seek +for them. + +Last year, in spite of the love which we are now pleased to profess +towards that ardent luminary, not one of the sun's numerous admirers +had courage to look him in the face: there was no bearing the world +till he had said 'Good-night' to it. Then we might stir: then we +began to wake and to live. All day long we languished under his +influence in a strange 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, embowered in leafiness, letting thought and fancy +float as they would. Those day-dreams were pretty things in their +way; there is no denying that. But then, if one half of the world +were to dream through a whole summer, like the sleeping Beauty in +the wood, what would become of the other? + +The only office requiring the slightest exertion, which I performed +in that warm weather, was watering my flowers. Common sympathy +called for that labour. The poor things withered, and faded, and +pined away; they almost, so to say, panted for draught. Moreover, +if I had not watered them myself, I suspect that no one else would; +for water last year was nearly as precious hereabout as wine. Our +land-springs were dried up; our wells were exhausted; our deep ponds +were dwindling into mud; and geese, and ducks, and pigs, and +laundresses, used to look with a jealous and suspicious eye on the +few and scanty half-buckets of that impure element, which my trusty +lacquey was fain to filch for my poor geraniums and campanulas and +tuberoses. We were forced to smuggle them in through my faithful +adherent's territories, the stable, to avoid lectures within doors +and at last even that resource failed; my garden, my blooming +garden, the joy of my eyes, was forced to go waterless like its +neighbours, and became shrivelled, 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 looking fit for a 'hortus siccus;' +mummies of plants, dried as in an oven; hollyhocks, once pink, +turned into Quakers; cloves smelling of dust. Oh, dusty world! May +herself looked of that complexion; so did Lizzy; so did all the +houses, windows, chickens, children, trees, and pigs in the village; +so above all did the shoes. No foot could make three plunges into +that abyss of pulverised gravel, which had the impudence to call +itself a hard road, without being clothed with a coat a quarter of +an inch thick. Woe to white gowns! woe to black! Drab was your +only wear. + +Then, when we were out of the street, what a toil it was to mount +the hill, climbing with weary steps and slow upon the brown turf by +the wayside, slippery, hot, and hard as a rock! And then if we +happened to meet a carriage coming along the middle of the road,-- +the bottomless middle,--what a sandy whirlwind it was! What +choking! what suffocation! No state could be more pitiable, except +indeed that of the travellers who 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 passengers, 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 condition, and taken refuge in a wise and patient +hopelessness, bent to endure in silence the extremity of ill. The +six insides, on the contrary, were still fighting against their +fate, vainly struggling to ameliorate their hapless destiny. They +were visibly grumbling at the weather, scolding at the dust, and +heating themselves like a furnace, by striving against the heat. +How well I remember the fat gentleman without his coat, who was +wiping his forehead, heaving up his wig, and certainly uttering that +English ejaculation, which, to our national reproach, is the phrase +of our language best known on the continent. And that poor boy, +red-hot, all in a flame, whose mamma, having divested her own person +of all superfluous apparel, was trying to relieve his sufferings by +the removal of his neckerchief--an operation which he resisted with +all his might. How perfectly I remember him, as well as the pale +girl who sat opposite, fanning herself with her bonnet into an +absolute fever! They vanished after a while into their own dust; +but I have them all before my eyes at this moment, a companion +picture to Hogarth's 'Afternoon,' a standing lesson to the grumblers +at cold summers. + +For my part, I really like this wet season. It keeps us within, to +be sure, rather more than is quite agreeable; but then we are at +least awake and alive there, and the world out of doors is so much +the pleasanter when we can get abroad. Everything does well, except +those fastidious bipeds, men and women; corn ripens, grass grows, +fruit is plentiful; there is no lack of birds to eat it, and there +has not been such a wasp-season these dozen years. My garden wants +no watering, and is more beautiful than ever, beating my old rival +in that primitive art, the pretty wife of the little mason, out and +out. Measured with mine, her flowers are naught. Look at those +hollyhocks, like pyramids of roses; those garlands of the +convolvulus major of all colours, hanging around that tall pole, +like the wreathy hop-bine; those magnificent dusky cloves, breathing +of the Spice Islands; those flaunting double dahlias; those splendid +scarlet geraniums, and those fierce and warlike flowers the +tiger-lilies. Oh, how beautiful they are! Besides, the weather +clears sometimes--it has cleared this evening; and here are we, +after a merry walk up the hill, almost as quick as in the winter, +bounding lightly along the bright green turf of the pleasant common, +enticed by the gay shouts of a dozen clear young voices, to linger +awhile, and see the boys play at cricket. + +I plead guilty to a strong partiality towards that unpopular class +of beings, country boys: I have a large acquaintance amongst them, +and I can almost say, that I know good of many and harm of none. In +general they are an open, spirited, good-humoured race, with a +proneness to embrace the pleasures and eschew the evils of their +condition, a capacity for happiness, quite unmatched in man, or +woman, or a girl. They are patient, too, and bear their fate as +scape-goats (for all sins whatsoever are laid as matters of course +to their door), whether at home or abroad, with amazing resignation +and, considering the many lies of which they are the objects, they +tell wonderfully few in return. The worst that can be said of them +is, that they seldom, when grown to man's estate, keep the promise +of their boyhood; but that is a fault to come--a fault that may not +come, and ought not to be anticipated. It is astonishing how +sensible they are to notice 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 ensure their hearts and their services. Half a dozen +of them, poor urchins, have run away now to bring us chairs from +their several homes. 'Thank you, Joe Kirby!--you are always first-- +yes, that is just the place--I shall see everything there. Have you +been in yet, Joe?'--'No, ma'am! I go in next.'--'Ah, I am glad of +that--and now's the time. Really that was a pretty ball of Jem +Eusden's!--I was sure it would go to the wicket. Run, Joe! They +are waiting for you.' There was small need to bid Joe Kirby make +haste; I think he is, next to a race-horse, or a greyhound, or a +deer, the fastest creature that runs--the most completely alert and +active. Joe is mine especial friend, and leader of the 'tender +juveniles,' as Joel Brent is of the adults. In both instances this +post of honour was gained by merit, even more remarkably so in Joe's +case than in Joel's; for Joe is a less boy than many of his +companions (some of whom are fifteeners and sixteeners, quite as +tall and nearly as old as Tom Coper), and a poorer than all, as may +be conjectured from the lamentable state of that patched round +frock, and the ragged condition of those unpatched shoes, which +would encumber, if anything could, the light feet that wear them. +But why should I lament the poverty that never troubles him? Joe is +the merriest and happiest creature that ever lived twelve years in +this wicked world. Care cannot come near him. He hath a perpetual +smile on his round ruddy face, and a laugh in his hazel eye, that +drives the witch away. He works at yonder farm on the top of the +hill, where he is in such repute for intelligence and good-humour, +that he has the honour of performing all the errands of the house, +of helping the maid, the mistress, and the master, in addition to +his own stated office of carter's boy. There he works hard from +five till seven, and then he comes here to work still harder, under +the name of play--batting, bowling, and 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 being in two places at once, and for +pitching a ball, William Grey himself is nothing to him. It goes +straight to the mark like a bullet. He is king of the cricketers +from eight to sixteen, both inclusive, and an excellent ruler he +makes. Nevertheless, in the best-ordered states there will be +grumblers, and we have an opposition here in the shape of Jem +Eusden. + +Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or thereabout, lean, small, +and short, yet strong and active. His face is of an extraordinary +ugliness, colourless, withered, haggard, with a look of extreme age, +much increased by hair so light that it might rather pass for white +than flaxen. He is constantly arrayed in the blue cap and +old-fashioned coat, the costume of an endowed school to which he +belongs; where he sits still all day, and rushes into the field at +night, fresh, untired, and ripe for action, to scold and brawl, and +storm, and bluster. He hates Joe Kirby, whose immovable +good-humour, broad smiles, and knowing nods, must certainly be very +provoking to so fierce and turbulent a spirit; and he has himself +(being, except by rare accident, no great player) the preposterous +ambition of wishing to be manager of the sports. In short, he is a +demagogue in embryo, with every quality necessary to a splendid +success in that vocation,--a strong voice, a fluent utterance, an +incessant iteration, and a frontless impudence. He is a great +'scholar' too, to use the country phrase; his 'piece,' as our +village schoolmaster terms a fine sheet of flourishing writing, +something between a valentine and a sampler, enclosed within a +border of little coloured prints--his last, I remember, was +encircled by an engraved history of Moses, beginning at the finding +in the bulrushes, with Pharaoh's daughter dressed in a rose-coloured +gown and blue feathers--his piece is not only the admiration of the +school, but of the parish, and is sent triumphantly round from house +to house at Christmas, to extort halfpence and sixpences from all +encouragers of learning--Montem in miniature. The Mosaic history +was so successful, that the produce enabled Jem to purchase a bat +and ball, which, besides adding to his natural arrogance (for the +little pedant actually began to mutter against being eclipsed by a +dunce, and went so far as to challenge Joe Kirby to a trial in +Practice, or the Rule of Three), gave him, when compared with the +general poverty, a most unnatural preponderance in the cricket +state. He had the ways and means in his hands (for alas! the hard +winter had made sad havoc among the bats, and the best ball was a +bad one)--he had the ways and means, could withhold the supplies, +and his party was beginning to wax strong, when Joe received a +present of two bats and a ball for the youngsters in general and +himself in particular--and Jem's adherents left him on the spot-- +they ratted, to a man, that very evening. Notwithstanding this +desertion, their forsaken leader has in nothing relaxed from his +pretensions, or his ill-humour. He stills quarrels and brawls as if +he had a faction to back him, and thinks nothing of contending with +both sides, the ins and the outs, secure of out-talking the whole +field. He has been squabbling these ten minutes, and is just +marching off now with his own bat (he has never deigned to use one +of Joe'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 +hussar--I do not know his name, and call him after his cap and +jacket. He is a very remarkable person, about the age of eight +years, the youngest piece of gravity and dignity I ever encountered; +short, and square, and upright, and slow, with a fine bronzed flat +visage, resembling those convertible signs the Broad-Face and the +Saracen's-Head, which, happening to be next-door neighbours in the +town of B., I never knew apart, resembling, indeed, any face that is +open-eyed and immovable, the very sign of a boy! He stalks about +with his hands in his breeches pockets, like a piece of machinery; +sits leisurely down when he ought to field, and never gets farther +in batting than to stop the ball. His is the only voice never heard +in the melee: I doubt, indeed, if he have one, which may be partly +the reason of a circumstance that I record to his honour, his +fidelity to Jem Eusden, to whom he has adhered through every change +of fortune, with a tenacity proceeding perhaps from an instinctive +consciousness that the loquacious leader talks enough for two. He +is the only thing 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 discrimination of the innocent +from the guilty, the activity of Jem's friendship would get the poor +hussar ten drubbings a day. + +But it is growing late. The sun has set a long time. Only see what +a gorgeous colouring has spread itself over those parting masses of +clouds in the west,--what a train of rosy light! We shall have a +fine sunshiny day to-morrow,--a blessing not to be undervalued, in +spite of my 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 +Mr. Welles's cottage, and our path lies straight before us. How +snug and comfortable that cottage looks! Its little yard all alive +with the cow, and the mare, and the colt almost as large as the +mare, and the young foal, and the great yard-dog, all so fat! +Fenced in with hay-rick, and wheat-rick, and bean-stack, and backed +by the long garden, the spacious drying-ground, the fine orchard, +and that large field quartered into four different crops. How +comfortable this cottage looks, and how well the owners earn their +comforts! They are the most prosperous pair in the parish--she a +laundress with twenty times more work than she can do, unrivalled in +flounces and shirt-frills, and such delicacies of the craft; he, +partly a farmer, partly a farmer's man, tilling his own ground, and +then tilling other people's;--affording a proof, even in this +declining age, when the circumstances of so many worthy members of +the community seem to have 'an alacrity in sinking,' that it is +possible to amend them by sheer industry. He, who was born in the +workhouse, and bred up as a parish boy, has now, by mere manual +labour, risen to the rank of a land-owner, pays rates and taxes, +grumbles at the times, and is called Master Welles,--the title next +to Mister--that by which Shakspeare was called;--what would man have +more? His wife, besides being the best laundress in the county, is +a comely woman still. There she stands at the spring, dipping up +water for to-morrow,--the clear, deep, silent spring, which sleeps +so peacefully under its high flowery bank, red with the tall spiral +stalks of the foxglove and their rich pendent bells, blue with the +beautiful forget-me-not, that gem-like blossom, which looks like a +living jewel of turquoise and topaz. It is almost too late to see +its beauty; and here is the pleasant shady lane, where the high elms +will shut out the little twilight that remains. Ah, but we shall +have the fairies' lamps to guide us, the stars of the earth, the +glow-worms! Here they are, three almost together. Do you not see +them? One seems tremulous, vibrating, as if on the extremity of a +leaf of grass; the others are deeper in the hedge, in some green +cell on which their light falls with an emerald lustre. I hope my +friends the cricketers will not come this way home. I would not +have the pretty creatures removed for more than I care to say, and +in this matter I would hardly trust Joe Kirby--boys so love to stick +them in their hats. But this lane is quite deserted. It is only a +road from field to field. No one comes here at this hour. They are +quite safe; and I shall walk here to-morrow and visit them again. +And now, goodnight! beautiful insects, lamps of the fairies, +good-night! + + + +THE SHAW. + +September 9th.--A bright sunshiny afternoon. What a comfort it is +to get out again--to see once more that rarity of rarities, a fine +day! We English +people are accused of talking overmuch of the weather; but the +weather, this summer, has forced people to talk of it. Summer! did +I say? Oh! season most unworthy of that sweet, sunny name! Season +of coldness and cloudiness, of gloom and rain! A worse November!-- +for in November the days are short; and shut up in a warm room, +lighted by that household sun, a lamp, one feels through the long +evenings comfortably independent of the out-of-door tempests. But +though we may have, and did have, fires all through the dog-days, +there is no shutting out daylight; and sixteen hours of rain, +pattering against the windows and dripping from the eaves--sixteen +hours of rain, not merely audible, but visible for seven days in the +week--would be enough to exhaust the patience of Job or Grizzel; +especially if Job were a farmer, and Grizzel a country gentlewoman. +Never was known such a season! Hay swimming, cattle drowning, fruit +rotting, corn spoiling! and that naughty river, the Loddon, who +never can take Puff's advice, and 'keep between its banks,' running +about the country, fields, roads, gardens, and houses, like mad! +The weather would be talked of. Indeed, it was not easy to talk of +anything else. A friend of mine having occasion to write me a +letter, thought it worth abusing in rhyme, and bepommelled it +through three pages of Bath-guide verse; of which I subjoin a +specimen:-- + + 'Aquarius surely REIGNS over the world, + And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirl'd; + Or he's taken a cullender up by mistake, + And unceasingly dips it in some mighty lake; + Though it is not in Lethe--for who can forget + The annoyance of getting most thoroughly wet? + It must be in the river called Styx, I declare, + For the moment it drizzles it makes the men swear. + "It did rain to-morrow," is growing good grammar; + Vauxhall and camp-stools have been brought to the hammer; + A pony-gondola is all I can keep, + And I use my umbrella and pattens in sleep: + Row out of my window, whene'er 'tis my whim + To visit a friend, and just ask, "Can you swim?"' + +So far my friend.* In short, whether in prose or in verse, +everybody railed at the weather. But this is over now. The sun has +come to dry the world; mud is turned into dust; rivers have +retreated to their proper limits; farmers have left off grumbling; +and we are about to take a walk, as usual, as far as the Shaw, a +pretty wood about a mile off. But one of our companions being a +stranger to the gentle reader, we must do him the honour of an +introduction. + +*This friend of mine is a person of great quickness and talent, who, +if she were not a beauty and a woman of fortune--that is to say, if +she were prompted by either of those two powerful stimuli, want of +money or want of admiration, to take due pains--would inevitably +become a clever writer. As it is, her notes and 'jeux d'esprit' +struck off 'a trait de plume,' have great point and neatness. Take +the following billet, which formed the label to a closed basket, +containing the ponderous present alluded to, last Michaelmas day:-- + + 'To Miss M. + "When this you see + Remember me," + Was long a phrase in use; + And so I send + To you, dear friend, + My proxy, "What?"--A goose!' + + +Dogs, when they are sure of having their own way, have sometimes +ways as odd as those of the unfurred, unfeathered animals, who walk +on two legs, and talk, and are called rational. My beautiful white +greyhound, Mayflower,* for instance, is as whimsical as the finest +lady in the land. Amongst her other fancies, she has taken a +violent affection for a most hideous stray dog, who made his +appearance here about six months ago, and contrived to pick up a +living in the village, one can hardly tell how. Now appealing to +the charity of old Rachael Strong, the laundress--a dog-lover by +profession; now winning a meal from the lightfooted and open-hearted +lasses at the Rose; now standing on his hind-legs, to extort by +sheer beggary a scanty morsel from some pair of 'drouthy cronies,' +or solitary drover, discussing his dinner or supper on the +alehouse-bench; now catching a mouthful, flung to him in pure +contempt by some scornful gentleman of the shoulder-knot, mounted on +his throne, the coach-box, whose notice he had attracted by dint of +ugliness; now sharing the commons of Master Keep the shoemaker's +pigs; now succeeding to the reversion of the well-gnawed bone of +Master Brown the shopkeeper's fierce house-dog; now filching the +skim-milk of Dame Wheeler's cat:--spit at by the cat; worried by the +mastiff; chased by the pigs; screamed at by the dame; stormed at by +the shoemaker; flogged by the shopkeeper; teased by all the +children, and scouted by all the animals of the parish;--but yet +living through his griefs, and bearing them patiently, 'for +sufferance is the badge of all his tribe;'--and even seeming to +find, in an occasional full meal, or a gleam of sunshine, or a wisp +of dry straw on which to repose his sorry carcase, some comfort in +his disconsolate condition. + +*Dead, alas, since this was written. + +In this plight was he found by May, the most high-blooded and +aristocratic of greyhounds; and from this plight did May rescue +him;--invited him into her territory, the stable; resisted all +attempts to turn him out; reinstated him there, in spite of maid and +boy, and mistress and master; wore out everybody's opposition, by +the activity of her protection, and the pertinacity of her +self-will; made him sharer of her bed and of her mess; and, finally, +established him as one of the family as firmly as herself. + +Dash--for he has even won himself a name amongst us, before he was +anonymous--Dash is a sort of a kind of a spaniel; at least there is +in his mongrel composition some sign of that beautiful race. +Besides his ugliness, which is of the worst sort--that is to say, +the shabbiest--he has a limp on one leg that gives a peculiar +one-sided awkwardness to his gait; but independently of his great +merit in being May's pet, he has other merits which serve to account +for that phenomenon--being, beyond all comparison, the most +faithful, attached, and affectionate animal that I have ever known; +and that is saying much. He seems to think it necessary to atone +for his ugliness by extra good conduct, and does so dance on his +lame leg, and so wag his scrubby tail, that it does any one who has +a taste for happiness good to look at him--so that he may now be +said to stand on his own footing. We are all rather ashamed of him +when strangers come in the way, and think it necessary to explain +that he is May's pet; but amongst ourselves, and those who are used +to his appearance, he has reached the point of favouritism in his +own person. I have, in common with wiser women, the feminine +weakness of loving whatever loves me--and, therefore, I like Dash. +His master has found out that he is a capital finder, and in spite +of his lameness will hunt a field or beat a cover with any spaniel +in England--and, therefore, HE likes Dash. The boy has fought a +battle, in defence of his beauty, with another boy, bigger than +himself, and beat his opponent most handsomely--and, therefore, HE +likes Dash; and the maids like him, or pretend to like him, because +we do--as is the fashion of that pliant and imitative class. And +now Dash and May follow us everywhere, and are going with us to the +Shaw, as I said before--or rather to the cottage by the Shaw, to +bespeak milk and butter of our little dairy-woman, Hannah Bint--a +housewifely occupation, to which we owe some of our pleasantest +rambles. + +And now we pass the sunny, dusty village street--who would have +thought, a month ago, that we should complain of sun and dust +again!--and turn the corner where the two great oaks hang so +beautifully over the clear deep pond, mixing their cool green +shadows with the bright blue sky, and the white clouds that flit +over it; and loiter at the wheeler's shop, always picturesque, with +its tools, and its work, and its materials, all so various in form, +and so harmonious in colour; and its noise, merry workmen, hammering +and singing, and making a various harmony also. The shop is rather +empty to-day, for its usual inmates are busy on the green beyond the +pond--one set building a cart, another painting a waggon. And then +we leave the village quite behind, and proceed slowly up the cool, +quiet lane, between tall hedgerows of the darkest verdure, +overshadowing banks green and fresh as an emerald. + +Not so quick as I expected, though--for they are shooting here +to-day, as Dash and I have both discovered: he with great delight, +for a gun to him is as a trumpet to a war-horse; I with no less +annoyance, for I don't think that a partridge itself, barring the +accident of being killed, can be more startled than I at that +abominable explosion. Dash has certainly better blood in his veins +than any one would guess to look at him. He even shows some +inclination to elope into the fields, in pursuit of those noisy +iniquities. But he is an orderly person after all, and a word has +checked him. + +Ah! here is a shriller din mingling with the small artillery--a +shriller and more continuous. We are not yet arrived within sight +of Master Weston's cottage, snugly hidden behind a clump of elms; +but we are in full hearing of Dame Weston's tongue, raised as usual +to scolding pitch. The Westons are new arrivals in our +neighbourhood, and the first thing heard of them was a complaint +from the wife to our magistrate of her husband's beating her: it +was a regular charge of assault--an information in full form. A +most piteous case did Dame Weston make of it, softening her voice +for the nonce into a shrill tremulous whine, and exciting the +mingled pity and anger--pity towards herself, anger towards her +husband--of the whole female world, pitiful and indignant as the +female world is wont to be on such occasions. Every woman in the +parish railed at Master Weston; and poor Master Weston was summoned +to attend the bench on the ensuing Saturday, and answer the charge; +and such was the clamour abroad and at home, that the unlucky +culprit, terrified at the sound of a warrant and a constable, ran +away, and was not heard of for a fortnight. + +At the end of that time he was discovered, and brought to the bench; +and Dame Weston again told her story, and, as before, on the full +cry. She had no witnesses, and the bruises of which she made +complaint had disappeared, and there were no women present to make +common cause with the sex. Still, however, the general feeling was +against Master Weston; and it would have gone hard with him when he +was called in, if a most unexpected witness had not risen up in his +favour. His wife had brought in her arms a little girl about +eighteen months old, partly perhaps to move compassion in her +favour; for a woman with a child in her arms is always an object +that excites kind feelings. The little girl had looked shy and +frightened, and had been as quiet as a lamb during her mother's +examination; but she no sooner saw her father, from whom she had +been a fortnight separated, than she clapped her hands, and laughed, +and cried, 'Daddy! daddy!' and sprang into his arms, and hung round +his neck, and covered him with kisses--again shouting, 'Daddy, come +home! daddy! daddy!'--and finally nestled her little head in his +bosom, with a fulness of contentment, an assurance of tenderness and +protection such as no wife-beating tyrant ever did inspire, or ever +could inspire, since the days of King Solomon. Our magistrates +acted in the very spirit of the Jewish monarch: they accepted the +evidence of nature, and dismissed the complaint. And subsequent +events have fully justified their decision; Mistress Weston proving +not only renowned for the feminine accomplishment of scolding +(tongue-banging, it is called in our parts, a compound word which +deserves to be Greek), but is actually herself addicted to +administering the conjugal discipline, the infliction of which she +was pleased to impute to her luckless husband. + +Now we cross the stile, and walk up the fields to the Shaw. How +beautifully green this pasture looks! and how finely the evening sun +glances between the boles of that clump of trees, beech, and ash, +and aspen! and how sweet the hedgerows are with woodbine and wild +scabious, or, as the country people call it, the gipsy-rose! Here +is little Dolly Weston, the unconscious witness, with cheeks as red +as a real rose, tottering up the path to meet her father. And here +is the carroty-poled urchin, George Coper, returning from work, and +singing 'Home! sweet Home!' at the top of his voice; and then, when +the notes prove too high for him, continuing the air in a whistle, +until he has turned the impassable corner; then taking up again the +song and the words, 'Home! sweet Home!' and looking as if he felt +their full import, ploughboy though he be. And so he does; for he +is one of a large, an honest, a kind, and an industrious family, +where all goes well, and where the poor ploughboy is sure of finding +cheerful faces and coarse comforts--all that he has learned to +desire. Oh, to be as cheaply and as thoroughly contented as George +Coper! All his luxuries a cricket-match!--all his wants satisfied +in 'home! sweet home!' + +Nothing but noises to-day! They are clearing Farmer Brooke's great +bean-field, and crying the 'Harvest Home!' in a chorus, before which +all other sounds--the song, the scolding, the gunnery--fade away, +and become faint echoes. A pleasant noise is that! though, for +one's ears' sake, one makes some haste to get away from it. And +here, in happy time, is that pretty wood, the Shaw, with its broad +pathway, its tangled dingles, its nuts and its honeysuckles;--and, +carrying away a faggot of those sweetest flowers, we reach Hannah +Bint's: of whom, and of whose doings, we shall say more another +time. + +NOTE.--Poor Dash is also dead. We did not keep him long, indeed I +believe that he died of the transition from starvation to good feed, +as dangerous to a dog's stomach, and to most stomachs, as the less +agreeable change from good feed to starvation. He has been +succeeded in place and favour by another Dash, not less amiable in +demeanour and far more creditable in appearance, bearing no small +resemblance to the pet spaniel of my friend Master Dinely, he who +stole the bone from the magpies, and who figures as the first Dash +of this volume. Let not the unwary reader opine, that in assigning +the same name to three several individuals, I am acting as an humble +imitator of the inimitable writer who has given immortality to the +Peppers and the Mustards, on the one hand; or showing a poverty of +invention or a want of acquaintance with the bead-roll of canine +appellations on the other. I merely, with my usual scrupulous +fidelity, take the names as I find them. The fact is that half the +handsome spaniels in England are called Dash, just as half the tall +footmen are called Thomas. The name belongs to the species. +Sitting in an open carriage one day last summer at the door of a +farmhouse where my father had some business, I saw a noble and +beautiful animal of this kind lying in great state and laziness on +the steps, and felt an immediate desire to make acquaintance with +him. My father, who had had the same fancy, had patted him and +called him 'poor fellow' in passing, without eliciting the smallest +notice in return. 'Dash!' cried I at a venture, 'good Dash! noble +Dash!' and up he started in a moment, making but one spring from the +door into the gig. Of course I was right in my guess. The +gentleman's name was Dash. + + + +NUTTING. + +September 26th.--One of those delicious autumnal days, when the air, +the sky, and the earth seem lulled into a universal calm, softer and +milder even than May. We sallied forth for a walk, in a mood +congenial to the weather and the season, avoiding, by mutual +consent, the bright and sunny common, and the gay highroad, and +stealing through shady, unfrequented lanes, where we were not likely +to meet any one,--not even the pretty family procession which in +other years we used to contemplate with so much interest--the +father, mother, and children, returning from the wheat-field, the +little ones laden with bristling close-tied bunches of wheat-ears, +their own gleanings, or a bottle and a basket which had contained +their frugal dinner, whilst the mother would carry her babe hushing +and lulling it, and the father and an elder child trudged after with +the cradle, all seeming weary and all happy. We shall not see such +a 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 redbreast, nature herself is mute. But how +beautiful, how gentle, how harmonious, how rich! The rain has +preserved to the herbage all the freshness and verdure of spring, +and the world of leaves has lost nothing of its midsummer +brightness, and the harebell is on the banks, and the woodbine in +the hedges, and the low furze, which the lambs cropped in the +spring, has burst again into its golden blossoms. + +All is beautiful that the eye can see; perhaps the more beautiful +for being shut in with a forest-like closeness. We have no prospect +in this labyrinth of lanes, cross-roads, mere cart-ways, leading to +the innumerable little farms into which this part of the parish is +divided. Up-hill or down, these quiet woody lanes scarcely give us +a peep at the world, except when, leaning over a gate, we look into +one of the small enclosures, hemmed in with hedgerows, so closely +set with growing timber, that the 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 description given of La Vendee, in Madame +Laroche-Jacquelin's most interesting book.* I am sure if wood can +entitle a country to be called Le Bocage, none can have a better +right to the name. Even this pretty snug farmhouse on the hillside, +with its front covered with the rich vine, which goes wreathing up +to the very top of the clustered chimney, and its sloping orchard +full of fruit--even this pretty quiet nest can hardly peep out of +its leaves. Ah! they are gathering in the orchard harvest. Look at +that young rogue in the old mossy apple-tree--that great tree, +bending with the weight of its golden-rennets--see how he pelts his +little sister beneath with apples as red and as round as her own +cheeks, while she, with her 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 russeting; and see that +smallest urchin of all, seated apart in infantine state on the turfy +bank, with that toothsome piece of deformity a crumpling in each +hand, now biting from one sweet, hard, juicy morsel and now from +another--Is not that a pretty English picture? And then, farther up +the orchard, that bold hardy lad, the eldest born, who has scaled +(Heaven knows how) the tall, straight upper branch of that great +pear-tree, and is sitting there as securely and as fearlessly, in as +much real safety and apparent danger, as a sailor on the 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? 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 +red, black hair curling close to their heads in short crisp rings, +white shining teeth--and such eyes!--That sort of beauty entirely +eclipses your mere roses and lilies. Even Lizzy, the prettiest of +fair children, would look poor and watery by the side of Willy +Brooker, the sober little personage who is picking up the apples +with his small chubby hands, and filling the basket so orderly, next +to his father the most useful man in the field. 'Willy!' He hears +without seeing; for we are quite hidden by the high bank, and a +spreading hawthorn bush that overtops it, though between the lower +branches and the grass we have found a convenient peep-hole. +'Willy!' The voice sounds to him like some fairy dream, and the +black eyes are raised from the ground with sudden wonder, the long +silky eyelashes thrown back till they rest on the delicate brow, and +a deeper blush is burning on those dark cheeks, and a smile is +dimpling about those scarlet lips. But the voice is silent now, and +the little quiet boy, after a moment's pause, is gone coolly to work +again. He is indeed a most lovely child. I think some day or other +he must marry Lizzy; I shall propose the match to their respective +mammas. At present the parties are rather too young for a wedding-- +the intended bridegroom being, as I should judge, six, or +thereabout, and the fair bride barely five,--but at least we might +have a betrothment after the royal fashion,--there could be no harm +in that. Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt, would be as demure and +coquettish as if ten winters more had gone over her head, and poor +Willy would open his innocent black eyes, and wonder what was going +forward. They would be the very Oberon and Titania of the village, +the fairy king and queen. + +*An almost equally interesting account of that very peculiar and +interesting scenery, may be found in The Maid of La Vendee, an +English novel, remarkable for its simplicity and truth of painting, +written by Mrs. Le Noir, the daughter of Christopher Smart, an +inheritrix of much of his talent. Her works deserve to be better +known. + +**'Deedily,'--I am not quite sure that this word is good English; +but it is genuine Hampshire, and is used by the most correct of +female writers, Miss Austen. It means (and it is no small merit +that it has no exact synonym) anything done with a profound and +plodding attention, an action which engrosses all the powers of mind +and body. + +Ah! here is the hedge along which the periwinkle wreathes and twines +so profusely, with its evergreen leaves shining like the myrtle, and +its starry blue flowers. It is seldom found wild in this part of +England; but, when we do meet with it, it is so abundant and so +welcome,--the very robin-redbreast of flowers, a winter friend. +Unless in those unfrequent frosts which destroy all vegetation, it +blossoms from September to June, surviving the last lingering +crane's-bill, forerunning the earliest primrose, hardier even than +the mountain daisy,--peeping out from beneath the snow, looking at +itself in the ice, smiling through the tempests of life, and yet +welcoming and enjoying the sunbeams. Oh, to be like that flower! + +The little spring that has been bubbling under the hedge all along +the hillside, begins, now that we have mounted the eminence and are +imperceptibly descending, to deviate into a capricious variety of +clear deep pools and channels, so narrow and so choked with weeds, +that a child might overstep them. The hedge has also changed its +character. It is no longer the close compact vegetable wall of +hawthorn, and maple, and brier-roses, intertwined with bramble and +woodbine, and crowned with large elms or thickly-set saplings. No! +the pretty meadow which rises high above us, backed and almost +surrounded by a tall coppice, needs no defence on our side but its +own steep bank, garnished with tufts of broom, with pollard oaks +wreathed with ivy, and here and there with long patches of hazel +overhanging the water. 'Ah, there are still nuts on that bough!' +and in an instant my dear companion, active and eager and delighted +as a boy, has hooked down with his walking-stick one of the lissome +hazel stalks, and cleared it of its tawny clusters, and in another +moment he has mounted the bank, and is in the midst of the nuttery, +now transferring the spoil from the lower branches into that vast +variety of pockets which gentlemen carry about them, now bending the +tall tops into the lane, holding them down by main force, so that I +might reach them and enjoy the pleasure of collecting some of the +plunder myself. A very great pleasure he knew it would be. I +doffed my shawl, tucked up my flounces, turned my straw bonnet into +a basket, and began gathering and scrambling--for, manage it how you +may, nutting is scrambling work,--those boughs, however tightly you +may grasp them by the young fragrant twigs and the bright green +leaves, will recoil and burst away; but there is a pleasure even in +that: so on we go, scrambling and gathering with all our might and +all our glee. Oh, what an 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,--therefore, when we +had a fine garden, I used to love to gather strawberries, and cut +asparagus, and above all, to collect the filberts from the +shrubberies: but this hedgerow nutting beats that sport all to +nothing. That was a make-believe thing, compared with this; there +was no surprise, no suspense, no unexpectedness--it was as inferior +to this wild nutting, as the turning out of a bag-fox is to +unearthing the fellow, in the eyes of a staunch foxhunter. + +Oh, what enjoyment this nut-gathering is! They are in such +abundance, that it seems as if there were not a boy in the parish, +nor a young man, nor a young woman,--for a basket of nuts is the +universal tribute of country gallantry; our pretty damsel Harriet +has had at least half a dozen this season; but no one has found out +these. And they are so full too, we lose half of them from +over-ripeness; they drop from the socket at the slightest motion. +If we lose, there is one who finds. May is as fond of nuts as a +squirrel, and cracks the shell and extracts the kernel with equal +dexterity. Her white glossy head is upturned now to watch them as +they fall. See how her neck is thrown back like that of a swan, and +how 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 eagerness, seeming almost sustained +in the air, just as I have seen her when Brush is beating a +hedgerow, and she knows from his questing that there is a hare +afoot. See, she has caught that nut just before it touched the +water; but the water would have been no defence,--she fishes them +from the bottom, she delves after them amongst the matted grass-- +even my bonnet--how beggingly she looks at that! 'Oh, what a +pleasure nutting is!--Is it not, May? But the pockets are almost +full, and so is the basket-bonnet, and that bright watch the sun +says it is late; and after all it is wrong to rob the poor boys--is +it not, May?'--May shakes her graceful head denyingly, as if she +understood the question--'And we must go home now--must we not? But +we will come nutting again some time or other--shall we not, my +May?' + + + +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 relief to the rich beauty of the +earth, all around glowing in the ripe and mellow tints of the most +gorgeous of the seasons. Really such an autumn may well compensate +our 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 sunset of the +year; and I have been tempted forth into a wider range of enjoyment +than usual. This WALK (if I may use the Irish figure of speech +called a bull) will be a RIDE. A very dear friend has beguiled me +into accompanying 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 +off we 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 distinction altogether +her own. Her beauty is duchess-like. She seems born to wear +feathers 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 devotedly +attached,--the mother of a 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. She is as transparent as water. You may see every +colour, every shade of a mind as lofty and beautiful as her person. +Talking with her is like being in the Palace of Truth described by +Madame de Genlis; and yet so kindly are her feelings, so great her +indulgence to the little failings and foibles of our common nature, +so intense her sympathy with the wants, the wishes, the sorrows, and +the happiness of her fellow-creatures, that, with all her +frank-speaking, I never knew her make an enemy or lose a friend. + +But we must get on. What would she say if she knew I was putting +her into print? We must get on up the hill. Ah! that is precisely +what we are not likely to do! This horse, this beautiful and +high-bred horse, well-fed, and fat and glossy, who stood prancing at +our gate like an Arabian, has suddenly turned sulky. He does not +indeed stand quite still, but his way of moving is little better-- +the slowest and most sullen of all walks. Even they who ply the +hearse at funerals, sad-looking beasts who totter under black +feathers, go faster. It is of no use to admonish him by whip, or +rein, or word. The rogue has found out that it is a weak and tender +hand that guides him now. 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 earshot, clearing the ground at a capital +rate, beating us hollow. He has just turned the top of the hill;-- +and in a moment--ay, NOW 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, and that will content us. He +is, after all, a fine noble animal; and perhaps when he finds that +we are determined to give him 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 discreet wives of my acquaintance contrive to +manage their husbands sufficiently with no better secret than this +seeming submission; and in our case the example has the more weight +since we have no possible way of helping 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 commonest 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 of years.' + +Every day I walk up this hill--every day I pause at the top to +admire the broad winding road with the green waste on each side, +uniting it with the thickly timbered hedgerows; the two pretty +cottages at 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 landscape; yet never did it seem to me so fine or so +glowing as now. All the tints of the glorious autumn, orange, +tawny, yellow, red, are poured in profusion among the bright greens +of the meadows and turnip fields, till the eyes are satiated with +colour; and then before us we have the common with its picturesque +roughness of surface tufted with cottages, dappled with water, +edging off on one side into fields and farms and orchards, and +terminated on the other by the princely 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 memory! Here is his common and mine! + + 'The common overgrown with fern, and rough + With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd + And dangerous to 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 one solitary urchin, as if in contemplation of its past +and future glories; for, alas! cricket is over for the season. Ah! +it is Ben Kirby, next brother to Joe, king of the youngsters, and +probably his successor--for this Michaelmas has cost us Joe! He is +promoted from the farm to the mansion-house, two miles off; there he +cleans shoes, rubs knives, and runs on 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 butler; and his splendid prospects must be our +consolation for the loss of this great favourite. In the meantime +we have Ben. + +Ben Kirby is a year younger than Joe, and the school-fellow and +rival of Jem Eusden. To be sure his abilities lie in rather a +different line: Jem is a scholar, Ben is a wag: Jem is great in +figures and writing, Ben in faces and mischief. His master says of +him, that, if there were two such in the school, he must resign his +office; and as far as my observation goes, the worthy pedagogue is +right. Ben is, it must be 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 Liston; and indeed the original face, flat and +square and Chinese 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 +marvellous gift of impudence, it forms as fine a specimen as +possible of a humorous country boy, an oddity in embryo. Everybody +likes Ben, except his butts (which may perhaps comprise half his +acquaintance); and of them no one so thoroughly hates and dreads him +as our parish schoolmaster, a most worthy King Log, whom Ben +dumbfounds twenty times a day. He is a great ornament of the +cricket-ground, has a real genius for the game, and displays it +after a very original manner, under the disguise of awkwardness--as +the clown shows off his agility in a pantomime. Nothing comes amiss +to him. By the bye, 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 perhaps it is as well that we are +so. I believe the rogue has a kindness for me, in remembrance of +certain apples and nuts, which my usual companion, who delights in +his wit, is accustomed to dole out to him. 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. + +The avenue is quite alive to-day. Old women are picking up twigs +and acorns, and pigs 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 younger elves +collecting as many dead leaves as they can find to feed the bonfire +which is smoking away so briskly amongst the trees,--a sort of +rehearsal of the grand bonfire nine days hence; of the loyal +conflagration of the arch-traitor Guy Vaux, which is annually +solemnised in the avenue, accompanied with as much of squibbery and +crackery as our boys can beg or borrow--not to say steal. Ben Kirby +is a great man on the 5th of November. All the savings of a month, +the hoarded halfpence, the new farthings, the very luck-penny, go +off in fumo on that night. For my part, I like this daylight +mockery better. There is no gunpowder--odious gunpowder! no noise +but the merry shouts of the small fry, so shrill and happy, and the +cawing of the rooks, who are wheeling in large circles overhead, 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, towering as if to meet the clouds. +There is something very intelligent in the ways of that black people +the rooks, particularly in their wonder. I suppose it results from +their numbers and their unity of purpose, a sort of collective and +corporate wisdom. Yet geese congregate also; and geese never by any +chance look wise. 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, +but 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 representative of the old English yeomanry, +should be so rich, but that one consequence of his riches should be +the pulling down of the prettiest old mill that ever looked at +itself in the Loddon, with the picturesque, low-browed, irregular +cottage, which stood with 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 square +house, ugly and red to match, just behind. The old buildings always +used to remind me of Wollett's beautiful 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 description of Bardolph's +nose would look pale in the comparison. + +Here is that monstrous machine of a tilted waggon, 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 danger 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 waggon, escorted 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 +employments. 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 astounding crack of his huge whip, +has put that refractory animal on his mettle. On we go! 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 farmhouse with the +horse-chestnut trees before, glowing like oranges; past the +whitewashed 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 accordingly. Perhaps he feels +the beauty of the road just here, and goes slowly to enjoy it. Very +beautiful it certainly is. The park paling 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 palings are replaced +by a steep bank, on which stands a small, quiet, village alehouse; +and higher up, embosomed in wood, is the little country church, with +its sloping churchyard 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, almost like a mountain. +How grandly the view opens as we ascend over that wild bank, +overgrown with fern, and heath, and gorse, 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 perversity, +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' exerted 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 +impervious recesses, and apparently interminable extent. It is the +triumph of landscape gardening, and never more beautiful than in +this autumn sunset, lighting up the ruddy beech and the spotted +sycamore, and gilding the shining fir-cones that hang so thickly +amongst the dark pines. The robins are 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 pattering along, making a merry music, mamma's own +Frances! And following her guidance, here we are in the dear round +room time enough to catch the last rays of the sun, as they light +the noble 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 vanishing in a succession of gorgeous +clouds. + +October 28th.--Another soft and brilliant morning. But the +pleasures of to-day must be written in shorthand. I have left +myself no room for notes of admiration. + +First we drove about the coppice: an extensive 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-tracks: 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 ascent to an eminence commanding an immense +extent of prospect, have a striking air of natural beauty, developed +and heightened by the perfection of art. All this, indeed, was +familiar to me; the colouring only was new. I had been there in +early spring, when the fragrant palms were on the willow, and the +yellow tassels on the hazel, and every twig was swelling with +renewed life; and I had been there again and again in the green +leafiness of midsummer; but never as now, when the dark verdure of +the fir-plantations, hanging over the picturesque and unequal +paling, partly covered with moss and ivy, contrasts so remarkably +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 covered 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 where 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 falling leaves in the quiet air, giving a voice to +the sunshine and the beauty. This coppice is a place to live and +die in. But we must go. And how fine is the ascent which leads us +again into the world, past those cottages hidden as in a pit, and by +that hanging 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 +monotonous county. It is Switzerland in miniature. + +And now we cross the hill to pay a morning visit to the family at +the great house,--another fine place, commanding another fine sweep +of country. The park, studded with old trees, and sinking gently +into a valley, rich in wood and water, is in the best style of +ornamental landscape, though more according to the common routine of +gentlemen's seats than the singularly original place which we have +just left. There is, however, one distinctive beauty in the grounds +of the great house;--the magnificent firs which shade the terraces +and surround the sweep, giving out in summer odours really Sabaean, +and now in this low autumn sun producing an effect almost magical, +as the huge red trunks, garlanded with ivy, stand out from the deep +shadows like an army of giants. Indoors--Oh I must not take my +readers indoors, or we shall never get away! Indoors the sunshine +is brighter still; for there, in a lofty, lightsome room, sat a +damsel fair and arch and piquante, one whom Titian or Velasquez +should be born again to paint, leaning over an instrument* as +sparkling and fanciful as herself, singing pretty French romances, +and Scottish Jacobite songs, and all sorts of graceful and airy +drolleries picked up I know not where--an English improvisatrice! a +gayer Annot Lyle! whilst her sister, of a higher order of beauty, +and with an earnest kindness in her smile that deepens its power, +lends to the piano, as her father to the violin, an expression, a +sensibility, a spirit, an eloquence almost superhuman--almost +divine! Oh to hear these two instruments accompanying 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 +rivalled its intensity of expression; to hear at once such poetry, +such music, such execution, is a pleasure never to be forgotten, or +mixed with meaner things. I seem to hear it still. + + As in the bursting spring time o'er the eye + Of one who haunts the fields fair visions creep + Beneath the closed lids (afore dull sleep + Dims the quick fancy) of sweet flowers that lie + On grassy banks, oxlip of orient dye, + And palest primrose and blue violet, + All in their fresh and dewy beauty set, + Pictured within the sense, and will not fly: + So in mine ear resounds and lives again + One mingled melody,--a voice, a pair + Of instruments most voice-like! Of the air + Rather than of the earth seems that high strain, + A spirit's song, and worthy of the train + That soothed old Prospero with music rare. + +*The dital harp. + + + +HANNAH BINT. + +The Shaw, leading to Hannah Bint's habitation, is, as I perhaps have +said before, a very pretty mixture of wood and coppice; that is to +say, a tract of thirty or forty acres covered with fine growing +timber--ash, and oak, and elm, very regularly planted; and +interspersed here and there with large patches of underwood, hazel, +maple, birch, holly, and hawthorn, woven into almost impenetrable +thickets by long wreaths of the bramble, the briony, and the +brier-rose, or by the pliant and twisting garlands of the wild +honeysuckle. In other parts, the Shaw is quite clear of its bosky +undergrowth, and clothed only with large beds of feathery fern, or +carpets of flowers, primroses, orchises, cowslips, ground-ivy, +crane's-bill, cotton-grass, Solomon's seal, and forget-me-not, +crowded together with a profusion and brilliancy of colour, such as +I have rarely seen equalled even in a garden. Here the wild +hyacinth really enamels the ground with its fresh and lovely purple; +there, + + 'On aged roots, with bright green mosses clad, + Dwells the wood-sorrel, with its bright thin leaves + Heart-shaped and triply folded, and its root + Creeping like beaded coral; whilst around + Flourish the copse's pride, anemones, + With rays like golden studs on ivory laid + Most delicate; but touch'd with purple clouds, + Fit crown for April's fair but changeful brow.' + +The variety is much greater than I have enumerated; for the ground +is so unequal, now swelling in gentle ascents, now dimpling into +dells and hollows, and the soil so different in different parts, +that the sylvan Flora is unusually extensive and complete. + +The season is, however, now too late for this floweriness; and +except the tufted woodbines, which have continued in bloom during +the whole of this lovely autumn, and some lingering garlands of the +purple wild vetch, wreathing round the thickets, and uniting with +the ruddy leaves of the bramble, and the pale festoons of the +briony, there is little to call one's attention from the grander +beauties of the trees--the sycamore, its broad leaves already +spotted--the oak, heavy with acorns--and the delicate shining rind +of the weeping birch, 'the lady of the woods,' thrown out in strong +relief from a background of holly and hawthorn, each studded with +coral berries, and backed with old beeches, beginning to assume the +rich tawny hue which makes them perhaps the most picturesque of +autumnal trees, as the transparent freshness of their young foliage +is undoubtedly the choicest ornament of the forest in spring. + +A sudden turn round one of these magnificent beeches brings us to +the boundary of the Shaw, and leaning upon a rude gate, we look over +an open space of about ten acres of ground, still more varied and +broken than that which we have passed, and surrounded on all sides +by thick woodland. As a piece of colour, nothing can be well finer. +The ruddy glow of the heath-flower, contrasting, on the one hand, +with the golden-blossomed furze--on the other, with a patch of +buck-wheat, of which the bloom is not past, although the grain be +ripening, the beautiful buck-wheat, whose transparent leaves and +stalks are so brightly tinged with vermilion, while the delicate +pink-white of the flower, a paler persicaria, has a feathery fall, +at once so rich and so graceful, and a fresh and reviving odour, +like that of birch trees in the dew of a May evening. The bank that +surmounts this attempt at cultivation is crowned with the late +foxglove and the stately mullein; the pasture of which so great a +part of the waste consists, looks as green as an emerald; a clear +pond, with the bright sky reflected in it, lets light into the +picture; the white cottage of the keeper peeps from the opposite +coppice; and the vine-covered dwelling of Hannah Bint rises from +amidst the pretty garden, which lies bathed in the sunshine around +it. + +The living and moving accessories are all in keeping with the +cheerfulness and repose of the landscape. Hannah's cow grazing +quietly beside the keeper's pony; a brace of fat pointer puppies +holding amicable intercourse with a litter of young pigs; ducks, +geese, cocks, hens, and chickens scattered over the turf; Hannah +herself sallying forth from the cottage-door, with her milk-bucket +in her hand, and her little brother following with the +milking-stool. + +My friend, Hannah Bint, is by no means an ordinary person. Her +father, Jack Bint (for in all his life he never arrived at the +dignity of being called John, indeed in our parts he was commonly +known by the cognomen of London Jack), was a drover of high repute +in his profession. No man, between Salisbury Plain and Smithfield, +was thought to conduct a flock of sheep so skilfully through all the +difficulties of lanes and commons, streets and high-roads, as Jack +Bint, aided by Jack Bint's famous dog, Watch; for Watch's rough, +honest face, black, with a little white about the muzzle, and one +white ear, was as well known at fairs and markets as his master's +equally honest and weather-beaten visage. Lucky was the dealer that +could secure their services; Watch being renowned for keeping a +flock together better than any shepherd's dog on the road--Jack, for +delivering them more punctually, and in better condition. No man +had a more thorough knowledge of the proper night stations, where +good feed might be procured for his charge, and good liquor for +Watch and himself; Watch, like other sheep dogs, being accustomed to +live chiefly on bread and beer. His master, though not averse to a +pot of good double X, preferred gin; and they who plod slowly along, +through wet and weary ways, in frost and in fog, have undoubtedly a +stronger temptation to indulge in that cordial and reviving +stimulus, than we water-drinkers, sitting in warm and comfortable +rooms, can readily imagine. For certain, our drover could never +resist the gentle seduction of the gin-bottle, and being of a free, +merry, jovial temperament, one of those persons commonly called good +fellows, who like to see others happy in the same way with +themselves, he was apt to circulate it at his own expense, to the +great improvement of his popularity, and the great detriment of his +finances. + +All this did vastly well whilst his earnings continued proportionate +to his spendings, and the little family at home were comfortably +supported by his industry: but when a rheumatic fever came on, one +hard winter, and finally settled in his limbs, reducing the most +active and hardy man in the parish to the state of a confirmed +cripple, then his reckless improvidence stared him in the face; and +poor Jack, a thoughtless, but kind creature, and a most affectionate +father, looked at his three motherless children with the acute +misery of a parent who has brought those whom he loves best in the +world to abject destitution. He found help, where he probably least +expected it, in the sense and spirit of his young daughter, a girl +of twelve years old. + +Hannah was the eldest of the family, and had, ever since her +mother's death, which event had occurred two or three years before, +been accustomed to take the direction of their domestic concerns, to +manage her two brothers, to feed the pigs and the poultry, and to +keep house during the almost constant absence of her father. She +was a quick, clever lass, of a high spirit, a firm temper, some +pride, and a horror of accepting parochial relief, which is every +day becoming rarer amongst the peasantry; but which forms the surest +safeguard to the sturdy independence of the English character. Our +little damsel possessed this quality in perfection; and when her +father talked of giving up their comfortable cottage, and removing +to the workhouse, whilst she and her brothers must go to service, +Hannah formed a bold resolution, and without disturbing the sick man +by any participation of her hopes and fears, proceeded after +settling their trifling affairs to act at once on her own plans and +designs. + +Careless of the future as the poor drover had seemed, he had yet +kept clear of debt, and by subscribing constantly to a benefit club, +had secured a pittance that might at least assist in supporting him +during the long years of sickness and helplessness to which he was +doomed to look forward. This his daughter knew. She knew also, +that the employer in whose service his health had suffered so +severely, was a rich and liberal cattle-dealer in the neighbourhood, +who would willingly aid an old and faithful servant, and had, +indeed, come forward with offers of money. To assistance from such +a quarter Hannah saw no objection. Farmer Oakley and the parish +were quite distinct things. Of him, accordingly, she asked, not +money, but something much more in his own way--'a cow! any cow! old +or lame, or what not, so that it were a cow! she would be bound to +keep it well; if she did not, he might take it back again. She even +hoped to pay for it by and by, by instalments, but that she would +not promise!' and, partly amused, partly interested by the child's +earnestness, the wealthy yeoman gave her, not as a purchase, but as +a present, a very fine young Alderney. She then went to the lord of +the manor, and, with equal knowledge of character, begged his +permission to keep her cow on the Shaw common. 'Farmer Oakley had +given her a fine Alderney, and she would be bound to pay the rent, +and keep her father off the parish, if he would only let it graze on +the waste;' and he too, half from real good nature--half, not to be +outdone in liberality by his tenant, not only granted the requested +permission, but reduced the rent so much, that the produce of the +vine seldom fails to satisfy their kind landlord. + +Now Hannah showed great judgment in setting up as a dairy-woman. +She could not have chosen an occupation more completely unoccupied, +or more loudly called for. One of the most provoking of the petty +difficulties which beset people with a small establishment in this +neighbourhood, is the trouble, almost the impossibility, of +procuring the pastoral luxuries of milk, eggs, and butter, which +rank, unfortunately, amongst the indispensable necessaries of +housekeeping. To your thoroughbred Londoner, who, whilst grumbling +over his own breakfast, is apt to fancy that thick cream, and fresh +butter, and new-laid eggs, grow, so to say, in the country--form an +actual part of its natural produce--it may be some comfort to learn, +that in this great grazing district, however the calves and the +farmers may be the better for cows, nobody else is; that farmers' +wives have ceased to keep poultry; and that we unlucky villagers sit +down often to our first meal in a state of destitution, which may +well make him content with his thin milk and his Cambridge butter, +when compared to our imputed pastoralities. + +Hannah's Alderney restored us to one rural privilege. Never was so +cleanly a little milkmaid. She changed away some of the cottage +finery, which, in his prosperous days, poor Jack had pleased himself +with bringing home, the china tea-service, the gilded mugs, and the +painted waiters, for the useful utensils of the dairy, and speedily +established a regular and gainful trade in milk, eggs, butter, +honey, and poultry--for poultry they had always kept. + +Her domestic management prospered equally. Her father, who retained +the perfect use of his hands, began a manufacture of mats and +baskets, which he constructed with great nicety and adroitness; the +eldest boy, a sharp and clever lad, cut for him his rushes and +osiers; erected, under his sister's direction, a shed for the cow, +and enlarged and cultivated the garden (always with the good leave +of her kind patron the lord of the manor) until it became so ample, +that the produce not only kept the pig, and half kept the family, +but afforded another branch of merchandise to the indefatigable +directress of the establishment. For the younger boy, less quick +and active, Hannah contrived to obtain an admission to the +charity-school, where he made great progress--retaining him at home, +however, in the hay-making and leasing season, or whenever his +services could be made available, to the great annoyance of the +schoolmaster, whose favourite he is, and who piques himself so much +on George's scholarship (your heavy sluggish boy at country work +often turns out quick at his book), that it is the general opinion +that this much-vaunted pupil will, in process of time, be promoted +to the post of assistant, and may, possibly, in course of years, +rise to the dignity of a parish pedagogue in his own person; so that +his sister, although still making him useful at odd times, now +considers George as pretty well off her hands, whilst his elder +brother, Tom, could take an under-gardener's place directly, if he +were not too important at home to be spared even for a day. + +In short, during the five years that she has ruled at the Shaw +cottage, the world has gone well with Hannah Bint. Her cow, her +calves, her pigs, her bees, her poultry, have each, in their several +ways, thriven and prospered. She has even brought Watch to like +butter-milk, as well as strong beer, and has nearly persuaded her +father (to whose wants and wishes she is most anxiously attentive) +to accept of milk as a substitute for gin. Not but Hannah hath had +her enemies as well as her betters. Why should she not? The old +woman at the lodge, who always piqued herself on being spiteful, and +crying down new ways, foretold from the first she would come to no +good, and could not forgive her for falsifying her prediction; and +Betty Barnes, the slatternly widow of a tippling farmer, who rented +a field, and set up a cow herself, and was universally discarded for +insufferable dirt, said all that the wit of an envious woman could +devise against Hannah and her Alderney; nay, even Ned Miles, the +keeper, her next neighbour, who had whilom held entire sway over the +Shaw common, as well as its coppices, grumbled as much as so +good-natured and genial a person could grumble, when he found a +little girl sharing his dominion, a cow grazing beside his pony, and +vulgar cocks and hens hovering around the buck-wheat destined to +feed his noble pheasants. Nobody that had been accustomed to see +that paragon of keepers, so tall and manly, and pleasant looking, +with his merry eye, and his knowing smile, striding gaily along, in +his green coat, and his gold-laced hat, with Neptune, his noble +Newfoundland dog (a retriever is the sporting word), and his +beautiful spaniel Flirt at his heels, could conceive how askew he +looked, when he first found Hannah and Watch holding equal reign +over his old territory, the Shaw common. + +Yes! Hannah hath had her enemies; but they are passing away. The +old woman at the lodge is dead, poor creature; and Betty Barnes, +having herself taken to tippling, has lost the few friends she once +possessed, and looks, luckless wretch, as if she would soon die +too!--and the keeper?--why, he is not dead, or like to die; but the +change that has taken place there is the most astonishing of all-- +except, perhaps, the change in Hannah herself. + +Few damsels of twelve years old, generally a very pretty age, were +less pretty than Hannah Bint. Short and stunted in her figure, thin +in face, sharp in feature, with a muddled complexion, wild sunburnt +hair, and eyes whose very brightness had in them something +startling, over-informed, super-subtle, too clever for her age,--at +twelve years old she had quite the air of a little old fairy. Now, +at seventeen, matters are mended. Her complexion has cleared; her +countenance has developed itself; her figure has shot up into height +and lightness, and a sort of rustic grace; her bright, acute eye is +softened and sweetened by the womanly wish to please; her hair is +trimmed, and curled and brushed, with exquisite neatness; and her +whole dress arranged with that nice attention to the becoming, the +suitable both in form and texture, which would be called the highest +degree of coquetry, if it did not deserve the better name of +propriety. Never was such a transmogrification beheld. The lass is +really pretty, and Ned Miles has discovered that she is so. There +he stands, the rogue, close at her side (for he hath joined her +whilst we have been telling her little story, and the milking is +over!)--there he stands--holding her milk-pail in one hand, and +stroking Watch with the other; whilst she is returning the +compliment by patting Neptune's magnificent head. There they stand, +as much like lovers as may be; he smiling, and she blushing--he +never looking so handsome nor she so pretty in all their lives. +There they stand, in blessed forgetfulness of all except each other; +as happy a couple as ever trod the earth. There they stand, and one +would not disturb them for all the milk and butter in Christendom. +I should not wonder if they were fixing the wedding day. + + + +THE FALL OF THE LEAF. + +November 6th.--The weather is as peaceful to-day, as calm, and as +mild, as in early April; and, perhaps, an autumn afternoon and a +spring morning do resemble each other more in feeling, and even in +appearance, than any two periods of the year. There is in both the +same freshness and dewiness of the herbage; the same balmy softness +in the air; and the same pure and lovely blue sky, with white fleecy +clouds floating across it. The chief difference lies in the absence +of flowers, and the presence of leaves. But then the foliage of +November is so rich, and glowing, and varied, that it may well +supply the place of the gay blossoms of the spring; whilst all the +flowers of the field or the garden could never make amends for the +want of leaves,--that beautiful and graceful attire in which nature +has clothed the rugged forms of trees--the verdant drapery to which +the landscape owes its loveliness, and the forests their glory. + +If choice must be between two seasons, each so full of charm, it is +at least no bad philosophy to prefer the present good, even whilst +looking gratefully back, and hopefully forward, to the past and the +future. And of a surety, no fairer specimen of a November day could +well be found than this,--a day made to wander + + 'By yellow commons and birch-shaded hollows, + And hedgerows bordering unfrequented lanes;' + +nor could a prettier country be found for our walk than this shady +and yet sunny Berkshire, where the scenery, without rising into +grandeur or breaking into wildness, is so peaceful, so cheerful, so +varied, and so thoroughly English. + +We must bend our steps towards the water side, for I have a message +to leave at Farmer Riley's: and sooth to say, it is no unpleasant +necessity; for the road thither is smooth and dry, retired, as one +likes a country walk to be, but not too lonely, which women never +like; leading past the Loddon--the bright, brimming, transparent +Loddon--a fitting mirror for this bright blue sky, and terminating +at one of the prettiest and most comfortable farmhouses in the +neighbourhood. + +How beautiful the lane is to-day, decorated with a thousand colours! +The brown road, and the rich verdure that borders it, strewed with +the pale yellow leaves of the elm, just beginning to fall; hedgerows +glowing with long wreaths of the bramble in every variety of +purplish red; and overhead the unchanged green of the fir, +contrasting with the spotted sycamore, the tawny beech, and the dry +sere leaves of the oak, which rustle as the light wind passes +through them; a few common hardy yellow flowers (for yellow is the +common colour of flowers, whether wild or cultivated, as blue is the +rare one), flowers of many sorts, but almost of one tint, still +blowing in spite of the season, and ruddy berries glowing through +all. How very beautiful is the lane! + +And how pleasant is this hill where the road widens, with the group +of cattle by the wayside, and George Hearn, the little post-boy, +trundling his hoop at full speed, making all the better haste in his +work, because he cheats himself into thinking it play! And how +beautiful, again, is this patch of common at the hilltop with the +clear pool, where Martha Pither's children,--elves of three, and +four, and five years old,--without any distinction of sex in their +sunburnt faces and tattered drapery, are dipping up water in their +little homely cups shining with cleanliness, and a small brown +pitcher with the lip broken, to fill that great kettle, which, when +it is filled, their united strength will never be able to lift! +They are quite a group for a painter, with their rosy cheeks, and +chubby hands, and round merry faces; and the low cottage in the +background, peeping out of its vine leaves and china roses, with +Martha at the door, tidy, and comely, and smiling, preparing the +potatoes for the pot, and watching the progress of dipping and +filling that useful utensil, completes the picture. + +But we must go on. No time for more sketches in these short days. +It is getting cold too. We must proceed in our walk. Dash is +showing us the way and beating the thick double hedgerow that runs +along the side of the meadows, at a rate that indicates game astir, +and causes the leaves to fly as fast as an east-wind after a hard +frost. Ah! a pheasant! a superb cock pheasant! Nothing is more +certain than Dash's questing, whether in a hedgerow or covert, for a +better spaniel never went into the field; but I fancied that it was +a hare afoot, and was almost as much startled to hear the whirring +of those splendid wings, as the princely bird himself would have +been at the report of a gun. Indeed, I believe that the way in +which a pheasant goes off, does sometimes make young sportsmen a +little nervous, (they don't own it very readily, but the observation +may be relied on nevertheless), until they get as it were broken in +to the sound; and then that grand and sudden burst of wing becomes +as pleasant to them as it seems to be to Dash, who is beating the +hedgerow with might and main, and giving tongue louder, and sending +the leaves about faster than ever--very proud of finding the +pheasant, and perhaps a little angry with me for not shooting it; at +least looking as if he would be angry if I were a man; for Dash is a +dog of great sagacity, and has doubtless not lived four years in the +sporting world without making the discovery, that although gentlemen +do shoot, ladies do not. + +The Loddon at last! the beautiful Loddon! and the bridge, where +every one stops, as by instinct, to lean over the rails, and gaze a +moment on a landscape of surpassing loveliness,--the fine grounds of +the Great House, with their magnificent groups of limes, and firs, +and poplars grander than ever poplars were; the green meadows +opposite, studded with oaks and elms; the clear winding river; the +mill with its picturesque old buildings, bounding the scene; all +glowing with the rich colouring of autumn, and harmonised by the +soft beauty of the clear blue sky, and the delicious calmness of the +hour. The very peasant whose daily path it is, cannot cross that +bridge without a pause. + +But the day is wearing fast, and it grows colder and colder. I +really think it will be a frost. After all, spring is the +pleasantest season, beautiful as this scenery is. We must get on. +Down that broad yet shadowy lane, between the park, dark with +evergreens and dappled with deer, and the meadows where sheep, and +cows, and horses are grazing under the tall elms; that lane, where +the wild bank, clothed with fern, and tufted with furze, and crowned +by rich berried thorn, and thick shining holly on the one side, +seems to vie in beauty with the picturesque old paling, the bright +laurels, and the plumy cedars, on the other;--down that shady lane, +until the sudden turn brings us to an opening where four roads meet, +where a noble avenue turns down to the Great House; where the +village church rears its modest spire from amidst its venerable yew +trees: and where, embosomed in orchards and gardens, and backed by +barns and ricks, and all the wealth of the farmyard, stands the +spacious and comfortable abode of good Farmer Riley,--the end and +object of our walk. + +And in happy time the message is said and the answer given, for this +beautiful mild day is edging off into a dense frosty evening; the +leaves of the elm and the linden in the old avenue are quivering and +vibrating and fluttering in the air, and at length falling crisply +on the earth, as if Dash were beating for pheasants in the +tree-tops; the sun gleams dimly through the fog, giving little more +of light and heat than his fair sister the lady moon;--I don't know +a more disappointing person than a cold sun; and I am beginning to +wrap my cloak closely round me, and to calculate the distance to my +own fireside, recanting all the way my praises of November, and +longing for the showery, flowery April, as much as if I were a +half-chilled butterfly, or a dahlia knocked down by the frost. + +Ah, dear me! what a climate this is, that one cannot keep in the +same mind about it for half an hour together! I wonder, by the way, +whether the fault is in the weather, which Dash does not seem to +care for, or in me? If I should happen to be wet through in a +shower next spring, and should catch myself longing for autumn, that +would settle the question. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText of Our Village. diff --git a/old/vllg10.zip b/old/vllg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d42b9f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/vllg10.zip |