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 OUR VILLAGE
 
 
 
 
 ^^^&^. 
 
 
 Watering 7)iy flmuers. '
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY RUSSELL MLrFORD 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNE THx\CKERAY RITCHIE 
 
 AND ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 KY 
 
 HUGH THOMSON 
 
 iLoutioii 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1893 
 
 A^l rights rcser^icri
 
 Li 
 
 ISAAC FOOT 
 LIBRARY
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 B^mTERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 / 
 
 There is a great deal of adiJiirable literature concerning 
 Miss Mitford, so much of it indeed, that the writer of 
 this little notice feels as if she almost ozved an apology to 
 those who remember, for having ventured to write, on 
 hearsay only, and without having ever known or ever seen 
 tJie 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,' ivith its hospitable cheery greet i>ig, 
 that she can scarcely realise that this acquaintance exists 
 only ill the world of the might-have-beens. 
 
 For people zuho are beginning to remember, rather than 
 looking forivard any more, there certainly exists no more 
 delightful reading than the memoirs and stories of heroes 
 and heroines, many of ivJiom ive ourselves may have seen, 
 and to whom zve may have spoken. As ivc 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 zvhich zve ourselves, together zvitJi all our friends and 
 acquaintances, grow young again ; — very young, very
 
 VIII OUR \ 11. LACE 
 
 brisl:, vciy hopeful. The people we love are there, along 
 with the people we remember. Music begins to play, we 
 ore (lauiiug, laughing, sean/pering over the country once 
 more ; our parents too are young and laugJiing cheerily. 
 Every now and then perhaps some old friend, also 
 vigorous and hopeful, bursts into the book, and begitts 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 Jllitford's memoirs, how many such familiar 
 presences and names must appear and irappear. Not 
 least among them that of her biog^'apJier, Mr. Harness 
 Jiimself, who was so valued by his friends. Mrs. Kemblc, 
 Mrs. S art oris, Charles Alls ton Collins, ahvays talked of 
 him zvith a great respect and tenderness. I used to think 
 they had a special voice with wJncJi to speak his name. 
 He was never among our intimate friends, but hozu 
 familiar to my recollectioti are the two figures, that of 
 Mr. Harness and 3Iiss Harness, Ids sister and Jiouse- 
 keeper, coming together along the busy Kensington road- 
 tvay. The brotJier and sister were like cJiaracters out of 
 some book, zvith their kind faces, their simple spiritual 
 zvays ; in touch with so vuich that zuas interesting and 
 romantic, and in heart with so much that suffered. I 
 remember him zuith grey hair and a smile. He zvas 
 not tall ; he zvalked rather lame ; Jliss Harness too zvas 
 little, looking up at all the rest of the zvorld zvith a 
 kind roimd face ajid spaj-kling eyes fringed zvith thick 
 lashes. Maty Mitford was indeed happy in her friends, 
 as happy as she zuas unfortunate in her nearer relations.
 
 INTRODUCTION IX 
 
 With 1/mc/i that is sad, tJiere is a great deal of beauty 
 and enjoy vieiit in Jlliss Mitford's life. For her the 
 absence of material happiness zvas made tip for by t/ie 
 presence of warm-hearted sensibility, of enthusiasm, by 
 her devotion to her parents. Her long endurance and 
 filial piety are very rcjnarkable, her loving heart carried 
 her safely to the end, and she found con fort in her 
 utireasoning lifes devotion. She had none of the restless- 
 ness which is so apt to spoil vmch that might be 
 harmonious ; all the charm of a certain unity and 
 simplicity of motive is hers, ' the sitigle eye,' of which 
 Charles Kingslcy zvrote so siveetly. She loved her home, 
 her trees, her surrounding lanes and commons. She 
 loved Jicr friends. Her books and fiowers are real and 
 important events in her life, soothing and distracting her 
 from the contemplation of its constant anxieties. ' / may 
 truly say,^ she once zvrites to Miss Barrett, ' that ever 
 since I was a very young girl, I have never {although for 
 some years living apparently in affluence) been zvithout 
 pecuniary care, — the care that pressed upon my thoughts 
 the last tiling at 7iight, and woke in the morning with a 
 dreary sense of pain and pressure, of somethi?ig wJiich 
 zveighed me to the cartJi! 
 
 Mary IZusscll Mitford zuas born on the i6th of 
 December 1787. She was the only child of Iter parents, 
 who tvere zvell connected ; her mother was an heiress. 
 Her father belonged to the JlHtfords of tJic North. She 
 describes herself as ' a puny child, ivith an affluence of 
 curls which made her look as if she zvere twin sister to
 
 X OUR VILLAGE 
 
 her ozvii j^/rnt 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 hozo she 
 first studied her beloved ballads in the breakfast-room 
 lined zuith books, luannly spread zvitJi its Turkey carpet, 
 with its bright fire, easy chains, 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 piowers, and how 
 the love of them comforted and cJicered her from the first 
 to the very last. In her saddest hours, the passing 
 fragrance and beauty of her favourite geraniums cliccred 
 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 zeds sent to school in the year 1798 to Xo. 22 
 Hans Place, to a Mrs. St. Quintins. It seems to have 
 been an excellent establishment. Mary learnt the harp 
 and astro!uvny ; her taste for literature was oicouragcd. 
 The young ladies, attired as shepherdesses, zvcre also 
 taught to skip throtigh many mazy movements, but she 
 tiever 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 1802. ' Plai?i in figure and in face, she tvas 
 never connnon-looking', says Mr. Harness. He gives a 
 pretty description of Jiet as ' no ordinary child, her sweet 
 smiles, her animated conversation, her keen enjoyment of 
 life, and her gentle voice tvon the love and adviiration of 
 her friends, whether young or old! Mr. Harness has
 
 INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 chiefly told Aliss MitfonVs story in her oivn words by 
 quotations from her letters, and, as one reads, one can 
 almost folloiv her nioods as they snceeed each other, and 
 these moods are her real history. The assiduity of 
 childhood, the bright enthnsiastn and gaiety of her 
 early days, the groiving anxiety of her later life, the 
 maturer judgments, the occasional despairing terrors 
 luhich came to try her bright nature, but along ivith 
 it all, that innocent and enduring hopefulness ivhich never 
 really deserted her. Her elastic spirit she owed to her 
 father, t/iat incorrigible old Skimpole. ' / am generally 
 happy everyzvherel she ivrites in her youth — and then 
 later on : ' // is a great pleasure to me to love and to 
 admire, this is a faculty ivhich has survived many 
 frosts and storms' It is true that she adds a query 
 somezvhcre else, ' Did you ever remark Jioiv superior old 
 gaiety is to new ? ' she asks. 
 
 Her handsojne father, her plaiti and long- enduring 
 mother, are both 2inconsciously described iji her corre- 
 spondence. ' The Doctor s manners zvere easy, natural, 
 cordial, and apparently extremely frank', says Mr. 
 Harness, ' /;/// he nevertheless met the world on its ozvn 
 terms, and teas prepared to alloiv himself any insincerity 
 zvJiich seenuui expedient. He zvas not only recklessly 
 extravagant, but addicted to high play. His zvife's 
 large fortune, his daughters, his ozvn patrimony, all 
 passed through his hands in an incredibly short space 
 of time, but his zvife and daughter zvere never heard to 
 complain of his conduct, nor appeared to admii^e him less! 
 
 The story of Miss Mitford's ;^20,000 is unique
 
 xii OUR VILLAGE 
 
 iiiiioHi^- the adventures of authoresses. Dr. Mitford, 
 liav'nii:; spent all his wife's fortune, and having brought 
 his family from a eomfortable home, with fioivers and a 
 Turkey carpet, to a small lodging Jicar Blackfriars Bridge, 
 determined to presoit his daughter with an expensive 
 lottery tieket on the occasion of her toith birthday. She 
 had a fancy for No. 2224, of -which the added nujubers 
 came to 10. This number actually came out the first 
 pri::e of £20,000, which money started the family once 
 more in comparative affluence. Dr. Mitford immediately 
 built a lu'iu square house, which he calls Bertram House, 
 on the site of a pretty old farmhouse whicJi lie causes 
 to be pulled dozvn. He also orders a dessert -service 
 painted with the Mitford arms ; A/rs. Mitford is 
 supplied with a carriage, and she subscribes to a circu- 
 lati)ig library. 
 
 A list still exists of t lie books taken out by her for her 
 daughter's use ; some fifty-five volumes a month, chiefiy 
 trash : Vicenza, A Sailor's Friendship and Soldier's 
 Love, Clarentina, Robert and Adela, The Count de 
 Valmont, The Three Spaniards, De CHfford (/;/ four 
 volumes^ and so on. 
 
 TJie next tzvo or three years zvere brilliant enough ; for 
 the family must have lived at the rate of three or four 
 thousand a year. Their hospitality ivas pr-ofuse, they had 
 servants, carriages, they bought pictures and furniture, 
 they entertained. Cobbett zcas among their intimate 
 friends. The Doctor naturally enough invested in a 
 good many uuire lottery tickets, but without any furtJicr 
 return.
 
 INTRODUCTION xill 
 
 TJic ladies seem to take it as a matter of course that 
 he sliouid speculate aud 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 ivith the bloom of 
 Iter hyacinths. ' Hoiv they long to see him again ! ' she 
 says, ' ho2u greatly Jiave they been disappointed, wJien, 
 every day, the journey to Reading has been fruitless. 
 The driver of the Reading coach is quite accustomed to 
 being ivaylaid by their carriage! Then she tells him 
 about the primroses, but neither hyacinths nor primroses 
 bring the Doctor away from his cards. Finally, the 
 rhododendroits and the azaleas are in bloom, but these 
 also fail to attract J dm. 
 
 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 fames Fox, and has the happiness of 
 ivatcJiing him helped on to his horse. Mr. Rom illy 
 delights her, but her greatest favourite of all is Mr. 
 WJiitbread. ' You knozv I am alivays an enthusiast^ 
 she zvrites, ' but at present it is impossible to describe 
 the admiration I feel for this exalted character.' She 
 speaks of his voice ' wJiicJt she could listen to with 
 transport even if he spoke in an unknown language I ' 
 she writes a sonnet to him, ' an iinpi-omptii, on hearing 
 Mr. Whitbrcad declare in Westminster Hall that he 
 fondly trusted his name would descend to posterity'. 
 
 ' T/ie hope of Fame tiiy /lot'te t>oso//i fires. 
 Nor I'eiin tlie Jiope t/iy ardent iin'/nt inspires ;
 
 xiv OUR VIIJ^ACK 
 
 /// Jhitish breasts ichilsl l^iirity roitains^ 
 W'liilst Lihcriy Jicr 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 ill her letters hotnc, — every one agrees as to the 
 extreme folly of SJieridan'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 knozvn Miss Austen as a child. She 
 may perhaps be fo7given for some prejudice and maternal 
 jealousy, in her later impressions, btit Mary Mitford admired 
 fane Austen alzvays ivitJi warmest enthusiasm. She ivritcs 
 to her mother at length from London, describing everything, 
 all the people and books and experiences that she comes 
 across, — tlie elegant suppers at Brompton, the Grecian 
 lamps, Mr. Barker s beauty, Mr. Plummers 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. Ji^omen 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 
 tJicn 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
 
 INTRODUCTION ^ XV 
 
 present day. They fish iu Sir John Sivinhurnc s lake, 
 thcv visit at Alnwick Castle. Miss JMitford kept her 
 front hair in papers till she reached Ahiwick, nor zvas 
 Jier dress discomposed though she had travelled tJiirty 
 miles. Tliey sat dozu7i, sixty-Jive to dinner, which tuas 
 ' oj course ' (she sonicivJiat magnijicently says) entirely 
 served on plate. Poor Marys pleasure is very much 
 dashed by the sudden disappearance oJ her Jather, — Dr. 
 Mitford zvas in the habit oJ doing anything he Jelt 
 i/icli/ied to do at once and on the spot, quite irrespectively 
 oJ the convenience of others, — and altliough a party had 
 been arranged on purpose to meet him in the North, and 
 /lis daughter zvas coutiting on his escort to return home, 
 {people posted in those days, they did not take their tickets 
 direct Jrom Nezvcastle to Londoji), Dr. Mitford one 
 morning leaves word that he has gone off to attend the 
 Reading election, where his presence zvas 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 fatJier, my beloved father, 
 zvould desert me at this distance frojn home ! Every one 
 is surprised.' Dr. Mitford zvas finally persuaded to 
 travel back to NortJiumberland to fetch his daughter. 
 
 The constant companionship of Dr. Mitford must 
 Juxve given a curious colour to Ids good and upright 
 daughter s viezvs of life. Adoring her father as she did, 
 she must have soon accustomed herself to take his fine
 
 xvi OUR VILLAGE 
 
 s/'ccchcs for fuic af/iotis, to accept /lis self-complacency in 
 the place of a conscience. She was a zcoman of %varni 
 impressions, with a strong sense of right. But it zvas 
 not within her daily experience, poor sonl, that people zvho 
 did not make grand professions ivere ready to do their 
 duty all the same ; nor did she akvays depejid upon the 
 uprightness, the coto-age, the self-denial of those who 
 made no protestations. At that time loud talking was 
 still the fashion, and loud living zvas considered romantic. 
 They both exist among us, but they are less admired, and 
 there is a different language spoken nozv to that of 
 Dr. Mitford and his school.^ This must account for 
 some of Miss Alitford's judgments of zvhat she calls a 
 '■ cynicar generatio7i, to whicJi she did little justice. 
 
 II 
 
 There is one penalty people pay for being autJiors, 
 zvhich 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 enougJi, and it interferes zvith nobody ; but in real his- 
 tory, and in ones own history most of all, this faculty is 
 apt to raise up bogies and nightmares along one's path ; 
 and while one is figJiting imaginary demons, the good 
 things and true are passed by unnoticed, the best realities 
 of life aj-e sometimes overlooked. . . . 
 
 ^ People 7iowadays are more ready to laugh than to admire wheii they 
 hear the lions bray ; for t?iewing and bleating, the taste, I fear, is on the 
 increase.
 
 t INTRODUCTION xvu 
 
 B//^ after all. Alary Russell Mitfoni, zc/io spent most 
 of her time gathering- figs off thistles ami making the 
 best of her difficult circumstanees, suffered less tlian many 
 people do from the infiuence of imaginary things. 
 
 She was twenty-three years old when her first book 
 of poems was published ; so ive read in her letters, in 
 zuhieh she entreats her father not to curtail any of the 
 verses addressed to him ; there is no reason, she says, 
 except his extreme modesty ivhy the verses should be 
 suppressed, — she speaks not otdy zvith the fondness of a 
 daughter but ivith the sensibility of a poet. Our young 
 authoress is modest, although in print ; she compares her- 
 self to Crabbe {as fane Austen might have done), and feels 
 ' zvhat she supposes a farthing candle zvould experience 
 zvhen the sun rises in all its glory! Then comes the 
 Publishers bill for £$9 \ ■^'^^^' ^'^^' ^J^^^'l^ shocked at tlie bill, 
 zvhich is really exorbitant I In her next letter Miss 
 Mitford reminds her father that the taxes are still un- 
 paid, a)id a correspondence follozvs zvith 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 
 a}id generally amusing liimself Everybody is speculat- 
 ing zvliether Sir Francis Burdett zvill go to the Tozver} 
 ' Oh, my darling, Jiozv I envy you at the fountain-head of 
 intelligence in these interesting times ! Hoiv I envy Lady 
 Burdett for the fine opportunity she has to shozv the 
 
 ^ Here, in our liitle sitbu7-ban garden at IViinbkdon, are the remains of an 
 old hedgerow which used to gi-ow in (he kitclten garden of t lie Grange where 
 Sir Francis Burdett then lived. The tradition is that he was walking in 
 the lane in his o-vn kifcheti garden when he was taken- np a)id carried off to 
 honotirable captivity. — A. T. A\
 
 xviii t>rK \ILl.AtiK 
 
 JwroisDi I'j 11/ 1 1 si.x .' writes tJie daughter, who is only 
 encountering trngry tax-gatJicrcrs at home. . . . Somehow 
 or other the bills are paid for the time, and the family 
 arrangements go on as before. 
 
 Besides tor it i tig to the members of her own home, 
 Miss Mitford started another correspondent very early in 
 life ; this zi'as Sir William Elford, to whom she describes 
 her ontings and adventures. Iter visits to Tavistock House, 
 ivhcre her kind friends the Perrys receive her. Mr. 
 Perry was the editor of the Morning Chronicle ; lie and 
 his beautiful zuife zuere the friends of all the most 
 interesting people of the day. Here again the present 
 writers ozvn experiences can interpret the printed page, 
 for her ozvn first sight of London people and of London 
 society came to her in a little house in Chcsham Place, 
 zvJiere her fathet'' s old friends, Mrs. Frederick Elliot and 
 Miss Perry, the daughters of Jlliss ALitford's friends, 
 lived with a very notable and interesting set of people, 
 making a social centre, by that kindly unconscious art 
 zvhich cannot be defined ; that quick apptxhensioii, that 
 benevoletit fastidiousness (/ Jiave to use rather farfetched 
 words) which are so essential to good hosts and hostesses. 
 A different standard is looked for noiv, by the rising 
 generations . knocking at the doors, behind zvhich the 
 dignified Past is lying as stark as I\ing Duncan hint- 
 self I 
 
 Among other entertainments Miss Mitford zvent 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
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 as much followed in the gardens as the Princess', she 
 says, pouring out her wonders, her pleasures, her r'aptures. 
 She begins to read Burns with youthful delight, dilates 
 upon his exJiaustless imagination, his versatility, and then 
 she suggests a very just criticism. . ' Does it not appear' 
 she says, ' that versatility is the true and rare character- 
 istic of that rare thing called genius — versatility and 
 playfulness f then she goes on to speak of tzvo highly- 
 reputed novels jitst come out and ascribed to Lady 
 Morley, Pride and Prejudice aiui Sense and Sensibility. 
 
 SJie is still writing from Bertram House, but her 
 pleasant gossip continually alternates with more uigent 
 and less agreeable letters addressed to her father. 
 Lazvyers' clerks are again calling with notices and 
 zvarnings, tax-gatherers are troubling. Dr. Mitford has, 
 as usual, left no address, so that she can only zvritc to the 
 ' Star Office,' and trust to chance. ' Mamma joins in 
 tenderest love', so the letters invariably conclude. 
 
 NotivitJistanding the adoration bestoiued by the ladies 
 of the family and their endearing adjectives, Mr. Harness 
 is very outspoken on the subject of the Jiandsome Doctor ! 
 He disliked his manners, his morals, his self-sufficiency, his 
 loud talk. ' T/ie old brute never informed his friends of 
 anything ; all they knew of him or his affairs, or whatever 
 false or true lie intended them to believe, came 07it 
 carelessly in /lis loose, disjointed talk! 
 
 In 1 8 1 4 Lliss Mitford is living on still zvith 
 Iter parejits at Bertram House, but a change has come 
 over tJieir home ; the servajits are gone, the gravel turned 
 to moss, the turf into pasture, the shrubberies to thickets,
 
 XX OUR VILLAGE 
 
 the IwHSi' a sort of new ' ruin half inhabited, and a 
 Chancery suit is hanging over their heads' Meantime 
 so^ne news comes to cheer her fro in America. l\uo 
 editiojis of Iter poems have been printed and sold. 
 Narrative Poems on the Female Character proved a 
 real success. ' All who have hearts to feel and under- 
 standings to discriminate, must zvish you health and leisure 
 to complete your plan' so write publishers in those golden 
 days, with complimentary copies of the tvork. . . . 
 
 Great things are happening all this time ; battles are 
 being fought and won, Napoleon is on his zaay to St. 
 Helena ; London is in a frenzy of rejoicings, cntertainings, 
 illuviinations. To lilaiy 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 ami belles lettres, and she is also re- 
 joicing even more, in the spring-time of i 8 1 6. Dr. Mit- 
 ford may be impecunious and their affairs may be thread- 
 bare, but the lovely seasons come out ever iji fresh beauty 
 and abundance. The coppices are carpeted with primroses, 
 zuith pansies and wild sti'azvbo'ry blossom, — the zcoods are 
 spangled zvith the delicate flozvcrs of the woodsorrcl and 
 zvood anemone, the meadows enamelled zvith cowslips. . . . 
 Certainly fezv Jiuman beings zvere ever created more fit 
 for this present zvorld, and more capable of admiring and 
 enjoying its beauties, than Jl/iss Mitford, who oily 
 desired to be beautiful herself she somczvhere says, to be 
 perfectly contented.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 /// 
 
 Most peoples lives are divided into first, second, and 
 third volumes ; ajid as %ve read Miss Mitford's history 
 it forms no exception to the rule. The early enthusiastic 
 volume is there, with its hopes and ivild judgments, its 
 quaint old-fashioned dress and phraseology ; then comes 
 the secojtd volume, full of actual zvork and serious 
 responsibility ; ivith those childish parents to provide 
 for, whose lives, thojigJi so protracted, never seem to I'cach 
 beyond their nurseries. Miss Mitford's tJiird volume is 
 retrospective ; her grozving ijifirmities are courageously 
 endured, there is the certainty of sitcccss zuell earned and 
 zvell deserved ; zve realise her legitimate hold upon the 
 outer world of readers and zvriters, besides the reputation 
 zvhich she won upoji the stage by her tragedies. 
 
 The literary ladies of the early part of the century in 
 some zvays had a very good time of it. A copy of verses, 
 a small volume of travels, a fezv tea-parties, a harp in one 
 corner of the room, and a hat and feathers zvorn rather 
 on one side, seemed to be all that zuas zvanted to establish 
 a claim to fashion and inspiration. They had footstools 
 to rest tJieir satin shoes upon, they had admirers and 
 panegyrists to their heart's content, and above all they 
 possessed that peculiar complacency in zvhich (zvith a few 
 notable exceptions) our age is singularly deficient. JJ^e 
 are earnest, we are audacious, we are original, hut zve 
 are 7tot complacent. They zvere dolls perhaps, and lived 
 in dolls" houses ; a\-c are ghosts zvithout houses at all ;
 
 wil OUR VII, LACE 
 
 Ci'<' conn- a fid j^o li'rapped in sJicets of 7ieivspafcr, Iioldhi<^ 
 Jlickcritig ligJits in our Juuids, paraffin lamps, by the 
 light of ivhich wc 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 its, so does 
 the Royal Academy ; and yet who could say that any of 
 their standards rise too high ! Some one or two are Jiappily 
 safe, carried by the angels of the Press to little altars and 
 pinnacles all their own ; but the majority of Jiard-working 
 intelligent women, 'contented with little, yet ready for inoi-e^ 
 may they not in moments of depression be allowed to 
 picture to themselves zvhat their chances might have been 
 had they only been born half a century earlier ? 
 
 Miss M it ford, notwithstanding all her troubles {she 
 has been knoivn to say she had rather be a zvasheriuomaft 
 than a literary lady), had opportunities such as fezv 
 women can nozv obtain. One is lost in admiration at 
 the solidity of one's grandpai'cnts'' taste, ivJioi 07ie attempts 
 to read the tragedies they delighted in, and yet Rienzi 
 sold four thousand copies and ivas acted forty -five times ; 
 a7id at one time Uliss Mitford had tivo tragedies re- 
 hearsed upoji the boards together ; one at Coveftt Gardejt 
 and one at Drury Lane, zvith Charles Kemble and 
 Macready disputing for her zvork. Has not one also 
 read similar descriptions of the triuuphs of Hajinah 
 More, or of JoJian?ia Baillic ; cheered by enthusiastic 
 audiences, wJiile men shed tears) 
 
 ' Mem. HaunaJi More, v. i. f. 124.
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiu 
 
 Julian icas the first of Miss MitforcVs acted plays. 
 It ivas brought out at Covent Garden //^ i 8 2 3 , whoi she was 
 tJiirty-six years old ; Macready played the principal part. 
 ' If the play do reach the ninth night,' Miss M it ford writes 
 to Macready, ' // %vill be a very complete refutation of 
 Mr. Keuibles axiom that no single performer can fill the 
 theatre ; for except our pretty Alfonso {Miss Footc) there is 
 only fulian, one and only one. Let him imagine hozv 
 deeply we feel his exertions and his kiiidness} . . .' 
 
 Julian 7vas stopped on the eighth night, to her great 
 disappointment, but she is already engaged on another — oji 
 several more — tragedies ; she %vants the money badly ; for 
 the editor of her magazine has absconded, ozving her f^o. 
 Some trying ajid bezvildering quarrel then ensues betiveen 
 Charles Kemble and Macready, tvhicJiputs 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 zvhicli the terrible feeling of responsibility and 
 zvant of poiuer has had upon her health and spirits, at last 
 resolves to tty if he can himself obtain any enployment 
 that may lighten the burthen of the home. It is a good 
 tiling that Dr. Mitford has braced himself to this heroic 
 determination. ' The addition of tivo or even one liundred 
 a year to our little income, joined to what I am, in a 
 manner, sure of gaining by mere industry, would take a 
 
 ^ In Macready^ s diary -wc fiihi an entry wJiicJi is not over gracious. 
 'Julian acted March the i$th. Had lutt moderate success. The C. G. 
 company tvas 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, hut the performance made little 
 impression, and was soon forgotten.^
 
 x\iv OUR VILLAGE 
 
 load from my Jtcart pf ivJiicli I can scarcely give you a>i 
 Idea . . . r7'<v/ Julian ivas written under a pressure of anxiety 
 which left me not a moment's rest. . . .' So she fondly 
 dwells upon the deligJitfnl prospects. Then comes the 
 next letter to Sir William Elf 07-d, and ivc read that her dear 
 father., ' relying zvith a blessed sangiiineness on my poor 
 endeavours, has not, I believe, even inquired for a situation, 
 and I do not press the matter, though I anxiously zvish it ; 
 being willing to give one more trial to the theatre! 
 
 On one of the many occasions when Miss Mitfoi-d 
 writes to her trustee imploring him to sell out the small 
 remaining fragment of her foj'tune, she says, ' My dear 
 father has, years ago, been improvident, is still irritable 
 and difficult to live with, but lie is a person of a thoiisand 
 virtues . . . there are very few half so good in this 
 mixed zvorld ; it is my fatdt that this money is needed, 
 entirely my fault, and if it be withheld, my dear father 
 will be overthrozvji, mind ajid body, and I shall never 
 kjiow another happy howl 
 
 No wonder Mr. Harness, zvho zvas behind the scenes, 
 remonstrated against the filial infatuation zvhich sacrificed 
 health, sleep, peace of mind, to gratify every passing zvhini 
 of the Doctor's. At a time w/icn she zvas sitting up at 
 night and slaving, hour after ho7ir, to earn the nccessaiy 
 means of living. Dr. Mitford must needs have a cozv, a 
 stable, and dairy implemetits procured fir his amusement, 
 and when he died he left £1000 of debts for the 
 scrupulous zvoman to pay off. She is determined to pay, 
 if she sells her clothes to do so. ATeajiwhile, the Doctor 
 is still alive, and Miss Mitford is stj-aining every nerve
 
 INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 to keep liim so. She is engaged {in strict eonjidenee) on a 
 g7-and historical subject, Char/cs and Cromwell, the finest 
 episode in English history, she says. Here, too, fresh 
 obstacles arise. This time it is the theatrical censor ivJio 
 i}iterfei-es. It zvould be dangerous for the country to touch 
 upon such topics ; Air. George Col man dive I Is 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 ;^200 for Julian from a Surrey 
 theatre), a nezv firm 'Whittaker' undertakes to republish 
 the ' village sketches ' ivhich had been writteti for the 
 abscoiuling editor. The book is to be published under 
 the title of Our Village. 
 
 /r 
 
 "■ Arc your charactei's atid descriptions true?' some- 
 body once asked our authoress. ' Yes, yes, yes, as tr?ie, as 
 true as is zvell possible^ she answers. ' 1 ^o?i, as a great 
 landscape painter, know that in painting a favourite scene 
 yo2i do a little embellish and cant help it ; you avail 
 yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere ; if anything 
 be ugly you strike it out, or if anytlmig be zaanting yo?( 
 put it in. Ihit still the picture is a likencssl 
 
 So wrote Miss Mitford, but with all due respect for her 
 and for Sir William Elf or d, the great landscape painter, 
 I cannot help thinking that what is admirable in her book, 
 are not her actual descriptions and pictures of intelligent
 
 NXvi OUR VI I. LACK 
 
 vi7/(7gcrs (r>i(f j^ny/io/ii/(h\ hut the more imaginative things ; 
 (he sense of spaee ami nature and progress ivJiicJt she 
 knozi's hoiv to convey ; the siveet and emotional cJiord she 
 stri/ces with so true a touch. Take at hazard her de- 
 scription 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 ex- 
 aggeration of facts, but the reality of a true and very 
 present feeling. . . . ' The narrozu line of clouds zvJiicJi 
 ' a few minutes ago lay like long vapouriiig streaks along 
 the horizojt, iiozv lighted with a goldeti splendour, that 
 the eye can scarcely endure ; those still softer clouds which 
 floated above, zureathijtg and c?trling into a thousand 
 fantastic forms as thin and cJmngefil as summer smoke, 
 defined and deepened into grandeur, and hedged zvitJi 
 ineffable, insufferable light. AnotJier minute and the 
 brillia7it orb totally disappears and the sky above grows, 
 every moment, more varied and more beautiful, as the 
 dazzling goldc}i lines are mixed zvitJi glozving red and 
 gorgeous purple, dappled zvith small dark specks, and 
 mingled with such a blue as the egg of the Jiedge- 
 sparrozv. . . . To look 7ip at that glorious sky, and then 
 to sec that magnificent picture reflected in tJic clear and 
 lovely Loddon zvater, is a pleasure never to be described, 
 and never to be foj'gottcji. My Jwart swells, and my eyes 
 fill as I zvrite 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 meajiest and lozvliest of His creatures! 
 But it is needless now to go on praising Our Village,
 
 INTRODUCTION xxvu 
 
 or to recount what a success zcurs in store for the little 
 book. Certain books hold their oivn 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 A merica ; artists came doxvn to 
 illustrate the scenes. Miss Mitford, who was so delighted 
 with the drazvings by Mr. Baxter, sJioidd have lived to 
 see the charming glimpses of rural life zue ozve to Mr. 
 Thomson. ' I don't mind 'em,' says Lizzy to the cows, 
 as they stand zvith spif'ited bovine grace behind the 
 stable door. ' Don't niind them indeed ! ' 
 
 I tJiink the author zvould assuredly have enjoyed the 
 picture of the baker, the zvheelzvriglit and the shoemaker, 
 each follozving his special Alderney along the road to the 
 village, or of the farmer driving his old zuife in the 
 gig. . . . One design, that of the lady in her pattens, 
 comes home to the zvritcr of these notes, zvho has perhaps 
 the distinction of being the only authoress nozv alive zvho 
 has ever zvalked out in pattens. At the age of seven 
 years she zvas provided zvith a pair by a great-great- 
 aunt, a kind old lady living at Fareham, in Hampshire, 
 where they zvcre still in use. How interesting the little 
 circles looked stamped upon the muddy road, and Jiozv 
 nearly dozvn upon one's nose one was at every otlier step I 
 
 But even zvith all her success. Miss ilfitford zvas 
 not out of her troubles. She zvritcs to Mr. Harness 
 saying: ' ^\>u cannot imagine Jiozv perplexed I am. 
 There are points in my domestic situatiofi too long and 
 too painful to write about ; the terrible improz'idence of one
 
 NXVlii OUR VILLAGE 
 
 dcdr parent, tltc failure of iiicviory and decay of faculty 
 ill that other who is still dearer, cast on me a zvcight of 
 care and fear that I can hardly bear up against.' Her 
 difficn/ties ivcre unendi^ig. The new ptiblisJier nozv 
 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 Jiurry 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 complimejits. She meditates a novel, she plans an 
 opera, Cupid and Psyche. 
 
 At last, better times began to daivn, and she receives 
 £i'^0 down for a new novel and ten guineas from 
 Blackzvood as a retainifig fee. Then comes a letter from 
 Charles Kemble giving her new hope, for her tragedy, 
 which was soon afterwards produced at Covent Gaj-den. 
 
 The tragedies arc iii tragic English, of course that 
 language of the boards, but not without a simplicity 
 arid music of their oiun. In the introduction to 
 them, in some volumes published by Hurst and Blacket 
 in 1854, Miss Mitford describes ' the scene of indescrib- 
 able chaos preceding the pcrformajice, the vague sense of 
 obscurity and confusion ; ti'agedians, hatted and coated, 
 skipping about, chatting and joking ; the only very 
 grave persoji being Lis ton himself Ballet-girls zualk- 
 ing tlu'ough their quadrilles to the sound of a solitary 
 fiddle, striking up as if of its ozvn accord, from amid the 
 tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra, and piercing, 
 one Jiardly knczv hozv, thro7igh the din that zvas goijtg on
 
 INTRODUCTION XXIX 
 
 incessantly. Oh, that din ! Voices from every part ; 
 above, bcloiv, around, and in every key. Heavy zveights 
 rolling here and falling there. Bells ringing, one could 
 not tell zvhy, and the ubiquitous call-boy everyzuhcre.' 
 
 She describes her astonishment wJicn the play succeeds. 
 ' Not that I had nerve enough to attend the first repre- 
 sentation of my tragedies. I sat still and trend^ling in 
 some quiet apartment near, and thither some friend 
 fleiu to set my heart at ease. Generally the messenger of 
 good tidings zuas poor Haydon, whose quick and ardent 
 spirit lent him zvings on such an occasion.' 
 
 We have the letter to her mother about Foscari, from 
 zuhich I have quoted; and on the occasion of the productioti 
 of Rienzi at Drury Lane (tzco years later in October 
 1828), the letter to Sir William Elford zuhen the poor 
 old mother zuas no longer here to rejoice in her daughter s 
 success. 
 
 Aliss Mitford gratefully records the sympathy of her 
 friends, the warm -hearted muses of the day. Mrs. 
 Trollope, JMiss Landon, Miss Edgezvorth, Miss Porden, 
 Mrs. FIofla7id, Mrs. Opie, who all appear with their 
 congratulations. 
 
 Miss Mitford says that Haydon, above all, sym- 
 pathised zvith her love for a large canvas. The 
 Classics, Spain, Italy, AfedicBval Rome, these arc her 
 favourite scenes and periods. Dukes and tribunes zvere 
 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
 
 x.\x OUR \ILLAGE 
 
 a grafijicatio)/ its, in our secret /oiigii/j^s, 7ve all expect. 
 It docs Not Jill the /leart, — it is an intoxication folloived 
 by a dismal reaction! She tells a friend that never in 
 all her life was she so depressed and out of spirits as 
 after Rieiizi, her first ideally successful venture. But their 
 is also a passing allusion to her father s state of mind, 
 to his mingled irritation and sulkiness, zvhich partly 
 explains things. Could it be that the Doctor added 
 petty Jealousy and etivy 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, zvould naturally account 
 for some ivant of spirits on the daugJiter s part ; over- 
 wrought, over- taxed, for ever on the strain, her loork 
 was exhausting indeed. The small pension she after- 
 wards obtained from the Civil List must have been an 
 unspeakable boon to the poor harassed zuoman. 
 
 Tragedy seems to have resulted in a substantial pony 
 and a basket carriage for Miss Mitford, and in various 
 invitations {from the Talfourds, ainong the rest) during 
 zi'hich she is lionised right and left. It must have been 
 on this occasion that Serjeant Talfourd complained so 
 bitterly of a review of Ion zvhich appeared about that 
 time. His guest, to soothe him, uinvarily said, ' she 
 should not have minded such a revieiu of her Tragedy! 
 
 ' Your Rienzi, indeed ! I should think not,' says the 
 Serjeant. ' Ion is vejy different.' The Talfourd house- 
 hold, as it is described by Mr. Lest range, is a droll 
 mixture of poetry and prose, of hospitality, of untidiness.
 
 INTRODUCTlUN XXXI 
 
 of pctntancc, of most gcmiinc kindi/css and most gcinciiie 
 Jiiimaii nature. 
 
 There are also matiy 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 lie gives a pleasant account of a certain supper-party 
 in honour of Ion at zvhich she is present, and during 
 zi'hich she asks Macready if he will not now bring out 
 her tragedy. The tragedian does not ajiswer, but Words- 
 worth, 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 Mar\' Russell Mitford, consisting of the letters she 
 received rather than of those which she zurote. Lt 
 certainly occurs to one, as one looks through the printed 
 correspondence of celebrated people, hoiv different are 
 zuritten 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 eveiy- 
 bodfs handzuriting is exactly alike ; in zvhich everybody 
 7ises the same type, the same expressions ; in zuhich the 
 eye roams from page to page untouched, unconvinced. 
 I caji imagine the pleasure each one of these letters may 
 have given to Miss Mitford to receive in turn. They
 
 wxii OUR VILLAGH 
 
 coiiu- from iccll-k)ioicii ladies, accustomed to be considered. 
 J/rs. Trollope, Mrs. Hofland, Mrs.Howitt, Mrs. S. C. Hall, 
 Miss Strickland, Mrs. Opic ; there, too, are Miss Barrett 
 and Mrs. Jamieson and Jlliss Sedgwick who ivrites 
 from America; they air all interesting people, but it 
 must be confessed that the correspondence is not very 
 enlivening. Miss Barretfs is aii exception, that is 
 almost as good as handwi'iting to read. But there is 
 no doubt that compliments to other authoresses ai'C much 
 less amusing than those otie 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 corre- 
 spo?tdent. 
 
 * / must have seemed a thankless wretch, my dear 
 Aliss Mitfoi'dl 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 
 writteti since yesterday mortiiiig,' says Harriet Martineau. 
 ' Oh, I can scarcely hold the pen ! I will not allow my 
 shame for not having written, to prevent me from zuriti^ig 
 now.' All these people seem to have been fust as busy as 
 people are now, as amusing, as tiresome. They had the 
 additional difficulty of having to procure fratiks, 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 
 circumlocictions. 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,
 
 INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 all of ivJiicJi their authors confidingly send from one to 
 another. There are also zvJiole flights of travelling poems 
 flopping their wings and uttering their cries as they go. 
 
 An enthusiastic American critic zvho comes over 
 to England emphasises the situation. Mr. Willis's 
 ' superlative admiration ' seems to give point to every- 
 thing, and to all the entJiusiasm. Miss Austen s Collins 
 himself could not have bee7i more appreciative^ not even 
 if Miss de Burgh had tj'ied her hand at a MS. . . . 
 Could he — Air. Willis — choose, he would have tragedy 
 once a year from Miss Mitford's pen. ' What afi 
 intoxicating life it is,' he cries ; ' / met fane 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 otvn letters speak in a much more 
 natural voice. 
 
 ' / never could understand zvhat people could find to 
 like in my letters'. Miss Mitfiord zurites, ' unless it be that 
 they have a root to them.' The root was in her own 
 kind heart. Miss Mitfiord may have been wanting a 
 little in discrimination, but she zvas never wanting in 
 syinpatJiy. She seems to have loved people fior kindness' s 
 sake indiscriminately as ifi they were creations ofi Jier 
 own brain : but to firiendliness or to trouble ofi any sort 
 she respo7ids with fiullest measure. Who shall complain 
 if some rosy veil coloured the aspects of lifie fior her ? 
 
 ' Among the many blessings I enjoy, — my dear fiat Jier, 
 my admirable mother, my tried and excellent firiends, — 
 there is nothing fior which I ought to thank God so 
 
 c
 
 xxxiv OUR VILLAGE 
 
 earnestly as for ilic constitutional buoyancy of spirits, the 
 aptness to hope, the will to be happy which I inherit from 
 my father,' she zc'ritcs. JJ'as ever filial piety so irritating 
 as hers ? It is difficult to bear, with any patience, her 
 praises of Dr. Mitford. His illusions were 7io less a 
 part of his nature than his daughter s, the one a self- 
 centred absolutely sclfsh existence, the other generous, 
 humble, beautiful. She is hardly ever really angry except 
 when some reports get about concerning her marriage. 
 There was ati announcement that she was engaged to 
 one of her own clan, and the ncivs spread among her 
 friends. The romantic Airs. Hofland had conjured up 
 the suggestioji, to Miss Mitford's extreme annoyance. It 
 is said Mrs. Hofland also married off Miss EdgewortJi 
 in the same manner. 
 
 Mary Mitford found her true romance in friendship, 
 not in love. One day Mr. Kenyan came to see her while 
 she was staying in London, and offered to show her the 
 Zoological Gardens, and 07i the zuay he proposed callijig iji 
 Gloucester Place to take up a yoimg lady, a connection of 
 his own. Miss Barrett by name. It was thus that Miss 
 Mitford first made the acquaintance of Mrs. Brownijig, 
 whose friendship was one of the happiest events of her 
 whole life. A happy romatice 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 Jiave a friend zvho says that zue have each one of 
 us a chosen audience of our own to wJiom we turn in- 
 stinctively, and before whom we rehearse that which is in 
 our minds ; whose opinion influences Jis, zvhose approval is
 
 INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 our secret aim. AIL this Airs. Browning seems to have 
 been to Miss Mitford. 
 
 ' / sit and think of yon and of the poems that you will 
 write, and of that strange rainbozu crown called fame, 
 luitil the vision is before me. . . . Jl/y pride and my 
 hopes seem altogether merged in you. At my time of 
 life and zvith so few to love, and zvith 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 zvith romantic devotion. What Miss Mitford 
 once said of herself zvas true, hers zuas the instinct of the 
 bee sucking honey from the hedge flower. Whatever 
 sweetness and happiness tJiere was to find she turned to 
 with unerring directness. 
 
 It is to Miss Barrett that she sometimes complains. 
 ' It will help you to understand hozu 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 news- 
 paper to hear the ten or twelve colunms 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 arriz'ed soon after. . . . I zvas 
 forced to leave, being engaged to call on Lady Madeline 
 Palmer. She took me some six miles on foot in Mr. 
 Palmer s beautiful plarttations, in search of that exquisite 
 wildfiower the bog-bean, do you knozv it ? most beautiful 
 of flowers, either wild — or, as K. puts it, — " tamcT 
 After long search we found the plant not yet in bloom! 
 
 Dr. Mitford weeps over his daughter s exJiaustion,
 
 xxxvi OUR VILLAGE 
 
 /(■/// //j^ everybody tJiat sJic is killing herself by her walks 
 and drives. He would like her never to go beyond the 
 garden and beyojid reaeJi of the eolnnnis of his nezvspaper. 
 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 
 7tature to her. Charles Kingsley Jiiviself could scarcely 
 write better of the East zvind. . . . 
 
 ' We have had nine weeks of drought and east zvind, 
 scarcely a floiver to be seen, no verdure in the vieadoivs, 
 no leaves in the hedgerows ; if a poor violet or primrose 
 did make its appearance it was scentless. I have not 
 once Jieard my aversion the ciickoo . . . and in this place, 
 so evidently the rejidezvous 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 ; ofily 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 h.er 
 vivid realisation of natural tilings. 
 
 She nursed her father through a long and trying 
 illness, and tvhen he died found herself alone in the world 
 with impaired healtJi and very little besides her pension 
 from the Civil List to live upon. Dr. Mitford left iJ^ i ooo 
 worth of debts, zvJiich this Jionoiirable ivoman 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.
 
 INTRODUCTION xxxvii 
 
 Queens, arcJibishops, dukes, and viarqiiises suhscnbe to 
 the testimonial, so do the literary ladies, Mesdanies Bailey, 
 Edgeworth, Trollop e ; Mrs. Opie is determined to collect. 
 £20 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 case at last 
 in this harassed life ; of a school-feast zuith buns and flags 
 organised by the kind lady, the children riding in zvaggons 
 decked with laurel, Miss Mitford leading the way, 
 followed by eight or ten neighbouring carriages, and the 
 zvJiole 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 Diike 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 zvas towards the etid of her life that Miss Mitford 
 left Three Mile Cross and came to Szvalloztfcld to stay 
 altogether. ' The poor cottage was tumbling around us, 
 and if zve 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. ' / walked from one cottage to the other on 
 an autumji evening zvhen the vagrant birds, zvhosc habit
 
 x.wviii OUR VILLAC.E 
 
 of assciiibliiii:; there for their ainiiiai departure, gives, I 
 s///>/>ose, its }tame of Swallowfield to the village, were 
 eireli/ig over iity 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 thirds, 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 jnercy mark us for His own 
 And guide us to the land unkiiowji ."" 
 
 Thoughts sootlmig and tender came zuith those toucJung 
 lines, and gayer images followed. . . . 
 
 It is from Szvalloivfield that she zv rites : ' / have felt 
 this blessijig of being able to respond to nexv friendships 
 very stroiigly lately, for I have lost many old and valued 
 connectiojts during tins trying spring. I tJiank 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 co/dial friendships of her life date 
 from this time. Mr. fames 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.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 VI 
 
 We went dozvn to Reading the other day, as so many of 
 Miss Mitford's friends have done before, to look at ' our 
 village ' zvith our oxvn eyes, and at the cottage in xvhich she 
 lived for so long. A phaeton zvitk a fast-stepping horse 
 met us at the station and zvhirled us through the busy tozvn 
 and along the straight dusty road beyond it. As we drove 
 along in the soft clouded su)ishi)ie I looked over the hedges 
 on either side, and I could see fields and hedgeroivs and red 
 roofs clustering Jiere and there, while the lozv background 
 of blue hills spread tozvards the Jiorison. It zvas an 
 zinpretcfitious 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 zue cone zvithin sight of the running brook, uncon- 
 taminated as yet ; the river fozuing cool and swift, 
 zvithout quack medicines stamped upon its zvaters : zve 
 reach Whitley presently, zvitk its pretty gabled hostel 
 {Airs. Mitford used to drive to Whitley and back for 
 her airing), the dust rises on the fresJi keen wind, the 
 scent of the ripe corn is in the air, the cozvs stoop under 
 the elm trees, looking exactly as they do in Mr. Thomson's 
 pretty pictures, dappled and brozvn, zvith 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 betzveen two or three roadside houses, and the
 
 xl OUR VILLACE 
 
 coaclnnaii, pointing ii.'it/i his lohip, says, 'That is " The Mit- 
 ford,'' i)ia\im. — That's ivlicrc Miss Jllitford used to live ! ' 
 IVas that all? I saw tico or tlwce connnonplace 
 houses skirting the dusty road, I saw a comfortable 
 public-house with an dm tree, and beside it another grey 
 unpretentious little house, zvitJi a slate roof and square 
 avails, and an inscription, ' The Mitford', painted over 
 the doorivay. . . . 
 
 / had beefi expecting 1 kneiv twt tvJiat ; a spire, a 
 pump, a green, a wielding street : my preconceived village 
 in the air had immediately to be sivept 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 zvas all ! this zvas 'our village' of ivJiich 
 the author had written so charjningly ! These ivere the 
 sights the kind eyes had dwelt upon, seeing in them all, the 
 soul of Jiiddcn things, rather thaji 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 ive have Miss Mitford's own description. ' TJie 
 Cross is not a borough, tha?ik Heaven, cither rotten or 
 independent. The inJiabitants aj-e quiet, peaceable people 
 zvho would not think of visiting us, even if we had a 
 knocker to knock at. Our residence is a cottage ' {she is 
 ivriting to Iter 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 
 ;^I400 might retire to ivJien he left off business to 
 live on his means. It consists of a series of closets.
 
 INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 tJie largest of zu/iich may be about eight feet sqjiare, which 
 they call parlours and kitchens and pantries, some of them 
 vmius a corner, ivhicJi has been unnatnrallj filched for a 
 chimney, others deficient in half a side, zvhich has been 
 truncated by a sJielving roof Behind is a garden about 
 the size of a good draiving-room, ivith an arbour, zuhich 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. Notzvithstanding all this " the cabin" as 
 Boabdil says, " is cmivenioit" It is zvithi)i- reach of my 
 dear old walks, the banks where I find my violets, the 
 mcadozvs full of coiuslips, and the zvoods zvJicre the 
 zvoodsorrel blozvs. . . . Papa has already had the satis- 
 faction of setting the neighbourhood to rights and 
 committing a disorderly person zvho zvas the pest of 
 '■ The Cross " to Bridczvcll. . . . Mamma has furbisJied 
 tip an old dairy ; I have lost my only key and stuffed the 
 garden zvith flowers' . . . So writes the contented young 
 zvoman. 
 
 How much more delightful is all this tlian any 
 commonplace stagey effect of lattice atid gable ; and 
 zuith zvhat pleasant unconscious art the zvriter of this 
 letter describes zvhat is not tJtere 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 pouri)ig a zvorld of music tJirougJi my zvindow.' 
 
 ' Do you not like to meet zvith good company in your 
 friends'' hearts ? ' Miss Alitford says somezvhere, — to no
 
 Nlii OUR MLLAGE 
 
 one better t/arn to herself does this iipply. Her heart zuas 
 full of graeious things, and the best of coi!ipa)ty was ever 
 hers, * La fleitr de la Jiotte^ as Madame de Sevigne says. 
 
 We walked into the small square hall ivhere Dr. 
 JMitford's bed ivas established after his illness, whilst 
 visitors and all the rest of the household eavie and went 
 through the kitchen door. In the parlour, once kept for 
 his private use, nozv sat a party of homely friends from 
 Reading, resting and dri7iking tea : zve too were served 
 with smoking cups, and poured our libation to her zvlio 
 once presided in the quiet place ; and then the landlady 
 took jis round and about, showed us the kitchen with its 
 comfortable cortters and loiv xvindow frames — ' / suppose 
 this is scarcely changed at all ? ' said one of us. 
 
 ' Oh yes, ma'am,' says the housekeeper — * We uses a 
 Kitchoier, Miss Mitford ahuays kept an open range! 
 
 The garden, with its sentry-box of privet, exists no 
 longer ; an iron mission-room stands in its place, zuit li- 
 the harmonium, the rozvs of strazu chairs, the table and 
 the candlesticks de circonstance. Miss Mitford' s picture 
 hangs on the wall, a Jia^id - colouj^ed 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 thi^igs 
 rather than in their outward signs. . . . Any one of us 
 ca7i feel the romance of a wayside shrine put up to the 
 memoiy of some inediceval zvell- dressed saint with a 
 nimbus at the back of her head, and a trailing cloak 
 and veil. . . . JTere, after all, is the same sentiment, only 
 translated into nineteentJi-century language; uses corrogated
 
 INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 iron sheds, and cnps of tea, and oaknin 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 nieeting-Jiouse 
 of good intent ; a tribute not less sincere because it is 
 square, than if it zvere drazvn into Gothic arch and 
 curve. It speaks, not of a holy and mythical saint, but 
 of a good and zuarm- hearted luoman ; of a life -long 
 penance borne zvitJi charity and checrfibiess ; of sweet 
 fancies and blessings luhich have given ijinocent pleasure 
 to many generations I 
 
 VII 
 
 There is a note, ivritten in a close and pretty 
 zvriting, something betzveen Sir Walter Scott's and Mrs. 
 Brozuning's, zvhich the present zvriter has possessed for 
 years, fastened in a book among other early treasures : — 
 
 Thank yon, dearest Miss Priscilla, for your great kindness. 
 I return the ninth volume of \illegible\ zoitli the four succeeding 
 ones, all that I have ; probably all that are yet published. You 
 shall have the rest zvhen I get them. Tell dear Air. 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, zvhich has nothing to do zvith the 
 name) ; the author'' s name is Stendhal, or so he calls hi/nself. I 
 thifdi that he zvas 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 abtuptness of the tivo notes ivhich I
 
 xliv OUR \ILLACiK 
 
 7vrote in reply to hers yesterday mor/iing ; and indeed nobody 
 could fancy the hurry in %vhich one is forced to write by this 
 walking post. . . . 
 
 Tell fny visitors of yesterday with my kind love that they did 
 nie all the good in the world, as indeed everybody of your house 
 does. — Ever, dear Miss Priscilla, veiy affectionately yours, 
 
 M. R. MiTFORD. 
 
 In the present zuriter's own early days, when the now 
 owner of Sivallozvfield zvas a very yamg, yotiftger son, she 
 7iscci to hear Jiini and his sister, Mrs. Brackenbury {the 
 Miss Priscilla of the note), speaking with affectionate 
 remembrance of the old fi-iend lately gone, who had dwelt 
 at their very gates ; tJirough whicJi friejidly gates one is 
 glad, indeed, to realise zvJiat dcligJitfid companionship and 
 loving help came to cheer the end of tnat long and toil- 
 some life ; and when Messrs. Macmillan suggested this 
 preface the writer looked for Jier old autograph-book, ajid 
 at its suggestion wrote {wonderiJig whether any links 
 existed still) to ask for information concernijig Miss 
 Mitford, and so it happened that she found herself also 
 kindly entertaifted at Szvallozvfield, and invited to visit 
 the scenes of zvJiicJi 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 afterzvards. There 
 are few greater pleasures than to meet zvith an Indi- 
 viduality, to listen to it speaking fro7)i a printed page, 
 recounting, st(ggesti?tg, grozving upo7i you every hour, 
 gaining in life and presence, and then, while still under
 
 INTRODUCTION xlv 
 
 its i)ifluc}ice, to find oneself suddenly transported into the 
 very scene of that life, to stajtd among its familiar 
 impressions and experiences, realising a?wther distinct 
 existence by some odd metempsychosis, and zvJiat may — 
 or rather, what must have been. It is existing a book 
 ratJicr tJian reading it zvhen this happens to 07ie. 
 
 The house in Swallozvfield Park is an old English 
 country home, a fastness still piled np agaitist time ; 
 whose stately zvalls and halls ivithin, and beautiful 
 century-old trees in the park witJiojit, record great times 
 and striking figures. The manor tvas a part of the 
 dozvry of Henry the VIIUs luckless queens. The 
 modem house zuas built by Clarendon, and the old church 
 among the elms dates from 1200, zuith carved signs and 
 symbols and brasses of knigJits and burgesses, and names 
 of strange sound and bygone fashion. 
 
 Lady Russell, zuho had sent the phaeton zvith the fast- 
 stepping horse to meet us, zvas zvalking in the park as zve 
 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 cJiurch, standing in its trim sweet garden, zvJiere 
 DeatJi itself seems smiling and fearless ; zvJiere kind 
 Mary M it ford's warm heart rests quiet, and ' her busy 
 hand,' as she says herself ' is lying in peace tJiere, zvJiere 
 the sun glances through the great elm trees in the beaut iftil 
 churchyard of Szvallozufield.' 
 
 The last baronet, Sir Charles, zvho fought in the Crimea, 
 and who succeeded his father. Sir Henry, moved the divid- 
 ing rail so that his old friend should be zvell zuithin the 
 shadozv of these elm trees. Lady Russell showed us
 
 xlvi OUR VILLAGE 
 
 tJic tranquil green place, and told us its story, and 
 hozv the old cJmrcJi had once been doomed to destruction 
 tjJioi Ki)igslcy came over by chance, and pleaded thai 
 it should be spared ; and hozv, when rubbish and outward 
 signs of decay had been cleared away, the restorers ivere 
 rewarded for their piety, by coming upon noble beams of 
 oak, iuitouclicd by time, npo}i some fine old buried mouji- 
 nicnts and brasses and inscriptio7is, among which the people 
 still say their prayers in the shrine where their fathers 
 knelt, and of luhich the tradition is not yet szvcpt away. 
 The present Lady of the JShmor, who loves old traditions, 
 has done her part to preserve the records for her cJiildren. 
 
 So Miss Mitford walked from Three Mile Cross to 
 Swallowfield to end her days, xuith these kind friends to 
 cheer and to comfort her. Sir Henry Rtissell zvas alive 
 when she first established herself but he was already 
 suffering from so7ne sudden seizure, which she, zvitli her 
 usual impetuosity, describes in her letters as a chronic state 
 of tilings. After his death, his zvidow, the Lady Russell 
 of those days, was her kindest friend and comforter. 
 
 The little Stvallowfield cottage at the meeting of the 
 three roads, to which Mary Mitford came when she left 
 Three Mile Cross, lias thrown out a room or tzvo, as 
 cottages do, but otherwise L think it can be little 
 changed. It zvas here Miss Mitford zvas visited 
 by so many interesting people, here she used to sit 
 zvriting at her big tabic under the ' tassels of her 
 acacia tree! WJien 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
 
 INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 rose was /tanging- npon the zvall beneath the xvindozv {it 
 must have taken many fears to grow to siieJi 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 zuere still flying, the sweet scents zvere in the air. 
 
 From a lady who had known her, ' my own Miss A fine ' 
 of the letters, zue heard something more that day of the 
 author of ' Our Village ' ; of her cJiarming intellect, her 
 gift of talk, her inpulsiveness, her essential sociability, and 
 rapid grace of mind. She had the faults of her qualities; 
 she jumped too easily to conclusions ; she was too mucJi 
 7inder the influence of those ivith zuJiom she lived. She 
 was born to be a victim, — evefi after her old tyrant father' s 
 death, she zvas more or less over-ridden by her servants. 
 NeigJibours looked somezvhat doubtfidly on K. and Ben, 
 but they zvere good to her, on the zvhole, and tended her 
 carefully. JMiss Russell said that zchen she and Iter 
 brother took refuge in the cottage, one morning from a 
 storm, zvhile they dried themselves by the fire, they sazv 
 the earefil meal carried up to the old lady, the kidneys, 
 the custard, for her dejeuner a la fourchette. 
 
 lVhe7i Miss Mitford died, she left everything she had 
 to her beloved K. and to Ben, except that she said she 
 zvished tJiat one book from her well-stocked libraiy should 
 be given to each of her friends. The old Doctor, zvith 
 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 
 Russell s, z^'ho had nursed Miss Mitford, eon for led her.
 
 xlviii OUR VILLAGE 
 
 In' 7vhosc gates she ckcclt, in ivJiose arms she died, Ben 
 brought, as a token of remembrance, an old shilling voliune 
 of one of G. P. R. f antes s novels, zvJiicJi zvas all lie con Id 
 bear to part zvitJi. A prettier incident zuas told me by 
 Miss Russell, zvho once zvent to visit Miss Mitford's grave. 
 She fotind a young man standiiig there whom she did 
 not know. ' Don't you knoiv me? ' said he ; ' / am Henry, 
 indam. I have Just come back from Australia.' He 
 was one of the children of the couple zuho had lived in 
 the cottage, and his first visit o?i his retujii 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 witJiin a very few 
 mojiths of her death ; she zvas still bright and responding 
 as ever, though very ill. The young visitor had Jiersclf 
 been laid up and absent from the invalid's bedside for 
 some time. They talked over many tilings, — an ajithorcss 
 among the rest, concerning zvJiose power of writ i tig a book 
 Miss Jintford 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 unbrokcft, zvitJi its M. R. M. just as 
 she stamped it), and this is the little letter : — 
 
 Thank you, dearest Miss . . . for once again shotoing me 
 your fair face by the side of the dear, dear friend [Lady Russell^ 
 for whose good?iess I have neither thanks nor words. To the 
 end of my life T shall go on sinning and repenting. Heartily 
 sorry have I been ever since you went away to have spoken so 
 unkindly to Mrs. . . . Heaveti forgive me for it, and send 
 her a happier conclusion to her life than the beginning might
 
 INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 warrant. If yoit have an idle lover, my dear, present over to 
 him my sermon, for those were words of worth. 
 
 God bless yon all ! Ever, most faithfully and affectionately 
 yoiirs, M. J?. Mitford. 
 
 Sunday Evening. 
 
 Vfll 
 
 WJien one turns from. Miss MitforcVs works to the 
 notices in the biographical dictionary {in wJiicJi Miss 
 Mitford and Mithridates occupy the same page), one 
 finds how firndy 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, i)i which Macready played a principal part, 
 followed by Foscari, Rienzi, and others^ says the English 
 Biographical Dictionary. 
 
 ' / am charmed zvith my new cottage,' she writes soon 
 after her last installation ; ' the neiglibours 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 JMitford at Szvallozvficld, and immediately 
 became a very great ally of hers. It zvas to him that 
 she gave her ozvn portrait, by Lucas. Mr. Fields has 
 left an interesting account of her in his Yesterdays 
 with Authors — ' Her dogs and her get'aniums,' he says, 
 
 d
 
 1 OUR ^•ILLAGE 
 
 ' zc't'fr her great glories ! S/ic iiscd to loritc nie long 
 letters about Fauchoti, a dog whose personal acquaintance 
 I had made some time before, zvhile on a visit to her 
 cottage. Every virtue tinder heaven she attributed to 
 that canine individual ; and I tvas obliged to allow in 
 my return lettei'S that since our planet began to spin, 
 nothing comparable to Fanchon had ever run on four 
 legs. I had also knotvn Flush, the ancestor of Fajichoji, 
 intimately, and had been accustomed to hear wondcrfid 
 things of that dog, but Fanchon had graces and 
 gejiius unique. Jlliss Mitford ivoidd have joined with 
 Hamcrton, zvhen he says, ' / humbly thank Divine 
 Providence for having invented dogs, and I regard 
 that man witJi wondering pity who ca)i lead a dogless 
 life: 
 
 Another of Miss Illitford's great friends zvas fohn 
 Ruskiji^ and one can zcell imagine hoiu much they must 
 have had in common. Of Jlliss Mitford' s zvritings Ruskin 
 says, ' They have the playfulness and purity of the Vicar 
 of Wakefield zvithout the natightiness of its occasional 
 zvit, or tJie dust of the zvorhVs great road on the other 
 side of the hedge. . . .' 
 
 Neither the dust nor the ethics of the zvorld of men 
 quite belonged to Miss Mitfoi^d's genius. It is alzvays 
 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 
 
 ^ 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. '
 
 INTRODUCTION li 
 
 father, zvhoiii she looked upon as an utter heartless ivorld- 
 liiig, to the nattiral spontaneous szveet flow of nature in 
 which she lived and moved instinctively. 
 
 Mr. fames 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. ' TJie 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 outsidcs of them have their message.' 
 
 Ulr. Payn zvent to see her at Sivallowfield, and 
 describes the small apartment lined zvitJi books from floor 
 to ceiling and fragrant zcith floiuers. ' Its tenant rose 
 from her arm-chair zvith difficulty, but zuith a sunny smile 
 and a charming manner bade me zvelcome. My fatJier 
 had been an old friend of hers, and she spoke of my home 
 and belongings as only a zvoman can speak of such things, 
 then zi'e plunged i)ito medca res, into men and books. She 
 seemed to me to have knozvn everybody zvorth knozving 
 from the Duke of Wellington to the last nezv verse-maker. 
 And she talked like an angel, but her viezcs 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 
 I'omantic person that ever zvrote plays." She zaas much 
 more proud of her plays, even then zvell-nigJi forgotten, 
 iJuxn of the zuorks by zvhich she zcas zvell knozvn, and 
 which at that time brought people from the ends of the 
 earth to sec her. . . . 
 
 ' Nothing ever destroyed her faith in those she loved.
 
 Hi OUR \rLLAGE 
 
 //" / had not kiioivn all about him from my own folk I 
 should have thought Jicr father had been a patriot and a 
 martyr. She spoke of him as if there had never been 
 such a father — whieh in a sense was true! 
 
 Mr. Payn quotes Miss Mitford's eharming description 
 of K., 'for wJiom she had the highest admiration! ' A". 
 is a great curiosity, by far the cleverest woman in these 
 parts, not in a literacy way \tJiis 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 ivhoin 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 zvhich she makes Ben reckon 
 with her, and her co7itempt for all women who do not 
 manage their husbands! 
 
 AnotJier delightficl quotation is from one of Charles 
 Kingslefs letters to Mr. Payn. It brings the past before 
 us from another point of viezv. 
 
 ' / can never forget the little figure rolled up in tivo 
 chairs in the little Swallowfield room, packed round with 
 books up to the ceiling — the little figure witJi 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 EnglisJnvoman — though I believe she must 
 have had French blood in her veins to breed such eyes and 
 sucJi a tongue, the beautiful speech which came out of that 
 ngly {it zuas that) face, and the glitter and depth too of
 
 INTRODUCTION liii 
 
 tJic eyes, like live coals — perfectly honest the tchile. . . .' 
 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 zvrittoi out of the past a)id 
 when everything is over.
 
 QomejVfr. 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction . . . . . . vii 
 
 Country Pictures 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 Walks in the Country 
 
 
 
 = 5 
 
 The First Primrose 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 Violeting 
 
 
 
 57 
 
 The Copse 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 The Wood 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 iHE Dell 
 
 
 
 105 
 
 I'he Cowslip-Ball 
 
 
 
 123 
 
 The Old House at Aberleigh 
 
 
 
 141 
 
 i HE Hard Summer 
 
 
 
 15s 
 
 The Shaw 
 
 
 
 177 
 
 Xuttino 
 
 
 
 197 
 
 The Visit . . . • 
 
 
 
 209 
 
 Hannah Bint . 
 
 
 
 229 
 
 I'HE Fall of thic Leaj- . 
 
 
 
 247
 
 rr'<st cjT ^//i^j-trCiS^ 
 
 ' Watering my flowers ' 
 
 Heading to Introduction 
 
 Heading to Contents . 
 
 Heading to List of Illustrations 
 
 Heading to Country Pictures . 
 
 ' A retired publican ' . 
 
 ' Playfellows ' . 
 
 ' The thickest of the fray ' 
 
 ' Mine host ' . 
 
 ' A recruiting sergeant ' 
 
 ' The worthy wheeler carry the gown ' 
 
 ' And a horseman passing it at a full trot ' 
 
 Tailpiece to Country Pictui^es 
 
 Heading to Walks in the Country 
 
 ' There they lie, roaring, kicking, sprawling 
 
 ' The road is gay now ' 
 
 ' The frost-bitten gentleman " 
 
 ' The lieutenant skating ' 
 
 ' Pattens paddle ' ._ . 
 
 Heading to The First Primrose 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 13 
 iS 
 
 22 
 
 24 
 27 
 29 
 31 
 32 
 35 
 39 
 43
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 ' Fine March wcailicr ' 
 
 'A vestry meeting' 
 
 ' An old gamekeeper " 
 
 ' A knowing look ' 
 
 'Joseph While carrying oil the fair Racht 
 
 Tailpiece to The First Primrose 
 
 Heading to Violating 
 
 ' A group on horseback ' 
 
 ' Three sturdy farmers ' 
 
 ' A merry group ' 
 
 ' A whistling boy ' 
 
 ' Bean-setting' 
 
 Tailpiece to Violeting 
 
 Heading to The Copse 
 
 ' Bringing her game ' 
 
 ' Home to " their walk 
 
 ' Sent to Coventry ' 
 
 ' Mrs. Sally Mearing ' 
 
 ' Giving his lodger fair warning 
 
 ' Soundly scolded ' 
 
 ' After the sheep ' 
 
 ' The shameless villain Saladin ' 
 
 Tailpiece to The Copse 
 
 Heading to The Wood 
 
 ' Saladin's affair with the Gander ' 
 
 ' Let us gather some ' 
 
 ' The hedgehog ' 
 
 Pleading to The Dell . 
 
 ' Half the cows in the street ' . 
 
 ' Poor blind Robert ' 
 
 ' Ah ! little i-ogues I ' . 
 
 ' Peaceful evenings ' 
 
 'There sits Mrs. Allen, feeding her j^oultry
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 lix 
 
 ' Over the Ijiklge " 
 
 Heading to The Cowslip-Ball 
 
 ' I don't mind 'em ' 
 
 ' A flirtation ' . 
 
 ' Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! ' . 
 
 ' Making the cowslip-ball ' 
 
 ' Faster, faster ! ' 
 
 ' Cloaks and umbrellas ' 
 
 ' May went to bed ' 
 
 Heading to The Old House at Aberl 
 
 ' Off we drove ' 
 
 ' Youth and age' 
 
 ' Here we must alight ! ' 
 
 Heading to The Hard Summer 
 
 ' Staring at a balloon ' 
 
 ' All one dust ' 
 
 ' That poor boy ' 
 
 ' Cricket ' 
 
 ' Thank you, Joe Kirby ' 
 
 ' Carter's boy ' 
 
 ' Squabbling ' . 
 
 ' The little hussar ' 
 
 ' Dipping up water ' . 
 
 Tailpiece to The Hard Summer 
 
 Heading to The Shaw 
 
 ' By sheer beggary ' 
 
 ' Maid and boy, and mistress and master ' 
 
 ' He likes Dash ' 
 
 ' A battle ' 
 
 ' The Bench ' . 
 
 ' Daddy ! daddy ! ' 
 
 ' Tottering up the path ' 
 
 Heading to Nutting 
 
 19 
 '25 
 [26 
 
 28 
 
 ^37 
 '38 
 140 
 
 143 
 
 144 
 .46 
 [48 
 
 f57 
 159 
 [62 
 
 ■63 
 
 ■65 
 .67 
 1 68 
 
 175 
 176 
 
 19 
 ■83 
 '85 
 186 
 1 88 
 190 
 191 
 193 
 '99
 
 Ix 
 
 OUR \ ILL AGE 
 
 ' In the applc-tree ' . 
 
 lieatling to The \ish 
 
 ' A fine noble animal ' 
 
 ' 'Prentice to the footman ' 
 
 ' The mill team " . 
 
 Heading to Hannah Bint 
 
 ' Jack Bint, aided by Jack Bint's famous dog 
 
 ' To the lord of the manor ' . 
 
 ' Admission to the charity-school ' 
 
 ' As much like lovers ' 
 
 Tailpiece to Hannah Bint 
 
 Heading to The Fall of the Leaf 
 
 ' The little post-boy " . 
 
 ' Ah 1 a pheasant ! a superb cock pheasant I ' 
 
 ' Grazing; under the tall elms ' 
 
 Watch 
 
 PAGE 
 202 
 
 211 
 
 214 
 
 217 
 
 221 
 
 238 
 240 
 
 243 
 246 
 249 
 251 
 
 253 
 255
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 
 
 (E
 
 ^- 
 
 
 ■31 l^r^^^^f^jV;^,. ^ vvi, v;-.;.,,v;..^(l^.\W^ 
 
 (punfry licfurips 
 
 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 man- 
 sions finely peopled, but of cottages and 
 cottage-like houses, ' messuages or tene- 
 ments,' 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 in- 
 sulated 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 shi[) ; 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 int(j these true-hearted
 
 4 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 feelings from the kindl)- and unconscious influence of 
 habit, and to learn to know and to love the people about j 
 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 j 
 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 in- 
 timate with every spot and every person it contains ; 
 or to ramble with Mr. \\'hite ^ 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 Eriday ; - 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 i 
 Dryden's exotic inventions : — that is best of all. I 
 
 1 White's A'atural Histoiy and Antiquities of Selborne ; one of the 
 most fascinating books ever written. I wonder that no naturaHst lias 
 adopted the same plan.
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 5 
 
 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 da}'s ago, and will I suppose return 
 some time or other. There arc coaches of all varieties 
 nowadays ; perhaps this ma)- be intended for a 
 monthly diligence, or a fortnight fl)\ Will you walk 
 with me through our village, courteous reader ? The 
 journey is not long. We will begin at the lower end, 
 and proceed up the hill. 
 
 The tidy, square, red cottage on the right hand, 
 with the long well-stocked garden by the side of the 
 road, belongs to a retired publican from a neighbour- 
 ing 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 
 paj)cr, and a transparency (originally designed fov a 
 pocket-handkerchief) with a flaming portrait of her 
 Majesty, hatted and feathered, in red ochre. lie had 
 no rival j'n the village, that we all acknowledged ; the
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 very bonfire was less splendid ; the little boys reserved 
 their best crackers to be expended in his honour, and 
 he gave tlicm fidl sixpence more than an}- one else. 
 lie would like an illumination once a month ; for it 
 
 'A retired pub lie afi.' 
 
 Copyt-igh' i8j3 by Macmillau &■ Co. 
 
 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 worth}- 
 neiirhbour begins to feel the weariness of idleness.
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 7 
 
 lie hangs o\-cr his gate, and tries to entice passengers 
 to stop and chat ; he vokmteers 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 dignit}'. 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 immovabl}- 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 sub- 
 stance ; 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 prett}' daughter, a light, delicate, fair-
 
 OUK VILLAGE 
 
 haired L;irl of fourteen, the champion, protectress, and 
 playfellow of ever\- brat under tliree \-ears old, whom 
 
 ' Playfellows. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Mactnillan &" Co. 
 
 she jumps, dances, dandles, and feeds all da}- long-. A 
 very attractive person is that child-loving girl. I have 
 never seen any one in her station who possessed so
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 9 
 
 thoroughl}' 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 bev.'itching 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 splen- 
 dour 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, merr)-, bustling dame, with four
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 fat, ros}-, nois\- children, the ver)' essence of ^■ulgarit^• 
 and plent}-. 
 
 Then comes the \"illaijje shop, hkc other village shops. 
 
 
 C^^ 
 
 
 K\^ 
 
 I 
 
 
 0^'"- ^^^^ -c. 
 
 • r/4f /■;//V/'«/ of the fray. ' /, IjT^j'/^^ ^ 
 
 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 }ou
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES ii 
 
 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 school- 
 mistress, parcel mantua-maker. I believe they find 
 adorning the bod}' a more profitable vocation than 
 adorning the mind. 
 
 Divided from the shop by a narrow }^ard, and 
 opposite the shoemaker's, is a habitation of whose 
 inmates I shall say nothing. A cottage — no — a minia- 
 ture 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 holly- 
 hocks, roses, honeysuckles, and a great apricot-trec ; 
 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 com- 
 pass comfort may be jjacked. Well, I will loiter there 
 no longer.
 
 12 OUR villa(;k 
 
 The next tenement is a place of importance, the 
 Rose Inn : a white-Avashed building, retired from the 
 road behind its fine swinging sign, with a little bow- 
 window room coming out on one side, and forming, 
 
 
 ■ Mine host.' 
 
 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 servine them with beer in his eternal red
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 13 
 
 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 Phcebe is fitter for town 
 than country ; and to do her justice, she has a conscious- 
 ness 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-improv- 
 ing, doing and undoing here. It is a perfect Penelope's 
 web. Carpenters and brickla)'crs 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
 
 14 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 shaded the rooms, and made them dark (there was 
 not a creature in the house but tlie 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,
 
 "5 ■"■'S'- 
 CopyrijTl.t J893 hy Macmitlan &■ Co.
 
 COUNTRY riCTURES 17 
 
 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 
 prett)- ! Yes, Lizzy is queen of the village ! She has 
 but one rival in her dominions, a certain white grey- 
 hound 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 land- 
 lady would call them ; he lives with his own famil)- 
 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 
 
 C
 
 iS 
 
 OUR VILLACK 
 
 reflection of clerical importance about them since their 
 connection with the Church, which is quite edifying — a 
 
 ^\ 
 
 
 ^/^ t 
 
 decorum, a gravity, a solemn politeness. Oh, to see 
 the worthy wheeler carry the gown after his lodger on 
 a Sunda}', nicel}' pinned up in his wife's best hand-
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 19 
 
 kerchief! — or to hear him rebuke a squalling child or 
 a squabbling woman ! The curate is nothing to him. 
 He is fit to be perpetual churchwarden. 
 
 We must now cross the lane into the shady rope- 
 walk. That pretty white cottage opposite, which stands 
 straggling at the end of the village in a garden full of 
 flowers, belongs to our mason, the shortest of men, and 
 his handsome, tall wife : he, a dwarf, with the voice of 
 a giant ; one starts when he begins to talk as if he 
 were shouting through a speaking trumpet ; she, the 
 sister, daughter, and grand -daughter, of a long line 
 of gardeners, and no contemptible one herself. It is 
 very magnanimous in me not to hate her ; for she 
 beats me in my own way, in chrysanthemums, and 
 dahlias, and the like gauds. Her plants are sure to 
 live ; mine have a sad trick of dying, perhaps because 
 I love them, ' not wisely, but too well,' and kill 
 them with over- kindness. Half-way up the hill is 
 another 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
 
 20 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 excellent gardener till about ten \-ear.s ago, when he 
 lost hi.s 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 Ev^ans, 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 
 an)-thing, but loves gardening best, and still piques 
 himself on his old arts of pruning fruit-trees, and raising 
 cucumbers. He is the happiest of men just now, for 
 he has the management of a melon bed — a melon bed I 
 — fie ! What a grand pompous name was that for 
 three melon plants under a hand-light ! John Evans is 
 sure that they will succeed, ^^'e shall see : as the 
 chancellor said, ' I doubt.' 
 
 We are now on the ver}' 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
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 21 
 
 long sprays covered with snow)- blossoms, so graceful, 
 so elegant, so lightsome, and yet so rich ! There only 
 wants a pool under the thorn to give a still lovelier re- 
 flection, 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, laugh- 
 ing, 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 w^ith 
 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
 
 OUR VI1.LAGL: 
 
 through the trees, whose clustering tops hide all but the I 
 chimneys, and various roofs of the houses, and here and 
 
 
 ' And a horseman passing it at 
 a full trot. ' 
 
 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
 
 COUNTRY PICTURES 23 
 
 over every part of the picture, trees so profusely 
 scattered, that it appears Hke a woodland scene, with 
 glades and villages intermixed. The trees are of all 
 kinds and all hues, chiefly the finel}'-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 hedge- 
 rows and trees, with cottages and farmhouses irregu- 
 larly placed, and terminated by a double avenue of 
 noble oaks ; the left, prettier still, dappled by bright 
 pools of water, and islands of cottages and cottage- 
 gardens, and sinking gradually down to 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
 
 24 
 
 OUR \1LLAGE 
 
 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. 
 
 ■''M'
 
 WALKS IN THE COUNTRY
 
 ^roft 
 
 feiJ £_Jj? anwary 23r^ — ^^ nooH to-day I and my white 
 greyhound, Mayflower, set out for a walk 
 5^ ^,x into a very beautiful world, — a sort of 
 ';^3> silent fairyland, — a creation of that match- 
 less 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 ther- 
 mometer ; 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
 
 28 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 gate looking up the quiet street ; a Sabbath-like pause 
 of work and pla\-, 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 foot- 
 steps, at her height of glee and of speed, fall like snow 
 upon snow. 
 
 But we shall have noise enough presently : ^Ia\- 
 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 — 
 sturd)' ' 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.' — 
 ' ril go now I Let me out ! 1 will go I ' are the last 
 words of Aliss Lizzy. Alem. Not to spoil that child 
 — if I can help it. But I do think her mother might 
 have let the poor little soul Wctlk with us to-day. 
 Nothing worse for children than coddling. Nothing 
 better for chilblains than exercise. Besides, I don't 
 believe she has anv — and as to breaking her bones in
 
 WALKS IN THE COUNTRY 
 
 29 
 
 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 air\' 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 
 
 I, around. And now comes the delisfhtful sound of 
 
 ' There they lie, ivai-ifig, kicking, sp7-a7vK7ig.' 
 
 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
 
 30 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 are of her acquaintance, especially the rogue who leads 
 the slide, — he with the brimlcss 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 unexpected!}- 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, sprawl- 
 ing, in every attitude of comic distress, whilst Jack 
 Rapley and ]\Ia)'flower, 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 monke\'-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
 
 WALKS IX THE COUNTRY 
 
 31 
 
 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 
 
 '%t 
 
 '"'Zn 
 
 ' The road is s^ay 7imi<. ' 
 
 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
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 the riders — especially the frost-bitten gentleman, and 
 the shivering lady with the invisible face, sole passen- 
 
 ' The frost-bitten gentleman.' 
 
 gers of that commodious machine ! Hooded, veiled, 
 and bonneted, as she is, one sees from her attitude how 
 miserable she would look uncovered.
 
 WALKS IN THE COUNTRY 33 
 
 Another pond, and another noise of children. More 
 sHding ? Oh no ! This is a sport of higher preten- 
 sion. Our good neighbour, the Heutenant, skating, and 
 his own pretty Httle 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 per- 
 spective 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, deli- 
 cate and defined as carved ivory. How beautiful it is, 
 ! how uniform, how various, how filling, how satiating to 
 i the eye and to the mind — above all, how melancholy ! 
 I There is a thrilling awfulncss, an intense feeling of 
 ' simple power in that naked and colourless beauty, 
 
 I which falls on the earth like the thoucrhts of death — 
 
 1 . . 
 
 i death pure, and glorious, and smiling, — but still death. 
 
 I Sculpture has always the same effect on my imagina- 
 tion, and painting never. Colour is life. — We are now 
 
 D
 
 34 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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, sink- 
 ing 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 berr}' here and there on the holly, 
 ' blushing in its natural coral ' through the delicate 
 tracery, still a stray hip or haw for the birds, who 
 abound here always. The poor birds, how tame they 
 are, how sadly tame ! There is the beautiful and rare 
 crested wren, ' that shadow of a bird,' as White of Sel- 
 borne calls it, perched in the middle of the hedge, nest- 
 ling 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 fan- 
 tastic 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 hardl}- reach, so nearly
 
 ' The lieutenant skating. ' 
 
 Copyrishi 1893 by Macmitlaii &■ Co.
 
 WALKS IN THE COUNTRY 37 
 
 do the fantastic forms of those garland-hke 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 wc 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 peni- 
 tence, she is covering me with snow. ' Come, pretty 
 Mav ! it is time to qo home.' 
 
 THAW. 
 
 January 28//;. — Wc have had rain, and snow, and 
 frost, and rain again ; four days of absolute confinement.
 
 3S OUR VILLAGE 
 
 Now it is a thaw and a flood ; but our light gravelly 
 soil, and country boots, and country hardihood, will 
 carry us through. \Miat a dripping, comfortless day it 
 is ! just like the last days of November : no sun, no 
 sky, gra\' 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 re- 
 born. Waggons creak, horses splash, carts rattle, and 
 pattens paddle through the dirt with more than their 
 usual clink. The common has its old fine tints of 
 green and brown, and its old variety of inhabitants, 
 horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and donkeys. The ponds 
 are unfrozen, 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.'
 
 ' Paitens paddle,^ 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmillan &■ Co.
 
 THE FIRST PRIMROSE
 
 ^f\<^ ^irst ^nmrore. 
 
 ac/C sti'v.— Fine March weather: boister- 
 ous, 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 wind- 
 ing 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
 
 4» 
 
 OUR VILLAC.E 
 
 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 
 
 
 ■ Fine March toeathcr. ' 
 
 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
 
 THE FIRST PRIMROSE 45 
 
 under this southern hedgerow, where nature is just 
 beginning to Hve again ; the periwinkles, with their 
 starry bhie flowers, and their shining m^-rtle-Hke leaves, 
 garlanding the bushes ; woodbines and elder-trees push- 
 ing 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-
 
 46 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 humoured obstinacy ; a civil importance. He never j 
 
 boasts of his wealth, or gives himself undue airs ; but \ 
 
 nobod)- can meet him at market or vestry without ! 
 
 finding out immediately that he is the richest man I 
 
 ' A vestry meeting.' 
 
 Copyright 1S93 by Mannillan &• Co. 
 
 there. They have no child to all this mone}' ; but 
 there is an adopted nephew, a fine spirited lad, who may, 
 perhaps, some day or other, pla}' the part of a fountain 
 to the reservoir. 
 
 Now turn up the wide road till we come to the
 
 -Am 
 
 ' An old gamekeeper. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmillan &■ Co.
 
 THE FIRST PRIMROSE 
 
 49 
 
 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 countr}-. Her 
 father, an old gamekeeper, had retired to a village ale- 
 house, where his good beer, his social humour, and his 
 black-eyed daughter, brought much custom. She had 
 lovers by the score ; but Joseph White, the dashing 
 and lively son of an opulent farmer, carried off the fair 
 Rachel. They married and settled here, and here they 
 live still, as merrily as ever, with fourteen children of 
 all ages and sizes, from nineteen years to nineteen 
 months, working harder than any people in the parish, 
 and enjoying themselves more. I would match them 
 for labour and laughter against any family in P^ngland. 
 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 sharj) 
 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 
 
 E
 
 so 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 of a washerwoman. There dwells, at present in single 
 blessedness, Betty Adams, the wife of our sometimes 
 gardener. I never saw an>' one who so much reminded 
 
 me in person of that lad}' whom ever}-body knows, 
 Mistress Meg IMerrilies ; — as tall, as grizzled, as statch', 
 as dark, as gipsy-looking, bonneted and gowned like 
 her prototype, and almost as oracular. Here the re- 
 semblance ceases. Mrs. Adams is a perfectly honest,
 
 
 wPS- 
 
 I ^ 
 
 
 ' Joseph White earryiiii; off the fair A'achel.
 
 THE FIRST TRIMROSE 53 
 
 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, overhung by laburnum 
 and bird-cherry ; a long piece of water letting light 
 into the picture, and looking just like a natural stream, 
 the banks as rude and wild as the shrubbery, inter- 
 spersed 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
 
 ^^ OUR VILLAGE 
 
 exact description of the home which, three years ago, 
 it nearly broke my heart to leave. What a tearing up 
 b\' 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 agon)' 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, \\hich 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 trans- 
 mogrified, 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 Ala}-. 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
 
 THE FIRST PRIMROSE 55 
 
 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 Ma}-, 
 no rabbits ! no primroses ! We may as w'ell get over 
 the gate into the woody winding lane, which will bring 
 us home again. 
 
 Here we arc 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 liv- 
 ing 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 lo be
 
 56 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 reached. Even Jack Rapley's love of the difficult and 
 the unattainable would fail him here : ]\Iay 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 beaut}-, sheltered from 
 the storms, and rejoicing in the sunshine, and looking 
 as if they could feel their happiness. \Mio would dis- 
 turb them ? Oh, how glad I am I came this way 
 liome ! 
 
 
 '^^^:e'&'^--'
 
 VIOLETING
 
 "^/toCctmCf 
 
 '^ -7^— It is a dull gray morning, with 
 a dewy feeling in the air ; fresh, but 
 not windy ; cool, but not cold ; — thever)- 
 day for a person newly arrived from the 
 heat, the glare, the noise, and the fever 
 of London, to plunge into the remotest hibyrinths 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 T am tr)'ing 
 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 mc, 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 an}- 
 one just now, even of those whom I best like to meet. 
 Ha! — Is not that group — -a gentleman on a blood-
 
 f>o 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 horse, a lad\- keeping pace with him so gracefully and 
 easily — see how prettily her veil waves in the wind 
 created b)- her own rapid motion ! — and that gay, gal- 
 lant boy, on the gallant white Arabian, curveting at 
 
 ' A group on horseback. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macttiillan <3* Co. 
 
 their side, but ready to spring before them every instant 
 — is not that chivalrous-looking party ]\Ir. and ]\Irs. ]\L 
 and dear B. ? No ! the servant is in a different livery. 
 It is some of the ducal family, and one of their young 
 Etonians. I may go on. I shall meet no one now ; 
 for I have fairly left the road, and am crossing the lea 
 by one of those wandering paths, amidst the gorse, and
 
 VIOLETING 61 
 
 the heath, and the low broom, which the sheep and 
 lambs have made — a path turfy, elastic, thym)', 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
 
 62 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 in straight dark beds of vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, 
 onions, beans ; all earthy and mouldy as a newly-dug 
 erave. Not a flower or flowering shrub I Xot a 
 
 
 
 '/■',, 
 
 ' Three sturdy farmers. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmitlnn &■ Co. 
 
 rose - tree or currant - bush ! 
 Nothing but for sober, mel- 
 ancholy use. Oh, different 
 from the long irregular slips of the cottage-gardens, 
 with their gay bunches of polyanthuses and crocuses,
 
 VIOLETING 
 
 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 
 
 ■A Dieny group.' 
 
 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 soUd, sub- 
 stantial, 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.
 
 64 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 Restraint, sickness, age, extreme poverty, miser)-, 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 certainl)-, 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 bean- 
 setting is ! What a reverse of the position assigned to 
 man to distinguish him from the beasts of the field ! 
 Only think of stooping for six, eight, ten hours a da}-, 
 drilling holes in the earth with a little stick, and then 
 dropping in the beans one by one. They are paid
 
 VIOLETING 
 
 65 
 
 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. 
 
 ' A 'Whistling boy: Hr^^^^ 
 
 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- 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 house, which ahvays, 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 
 
 'Bean-setting.' 
 
 the house, covered with ivy, fine white-veined iv)' ; 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
 
 VIOLETING 
 
 67 
 
 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 ! 'J"o 
 inhabit such a scene of peace and sweetness is again to
 
 68 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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
 
 £7ne Cof^c. 
 
 ^^riT istFi — Sad wintry weather ; a north- 
 east wind ; a sun that puts out one's eyes, 
 without affording the sHghtest warmth ; 
 dryness that chaps Hps and hands hke 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
 
 72 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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. In- 
 stinct 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
 
 W$'0- 
 
 
 ' Bringi7ig her game' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by MacmiUait &■ Co
 
 THE COPSE 
 
 75 
 
 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 
 
 
 
 
 'itu.Jh- 
 
 Ct^ 
 
 w 
 
 >-^' 
 
 ' Home to " their -walk." ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmillan &■ Co 
 
 our little establishment from three dogs to one, hail 
 also dispersed the splendid kennel of a celebrated 
 courser in our nelghbourhocjd, three of wIkjsc finest
 
 OUR \ILLA(;i': 
 
 young dogs came home to ' their walk ' (as the sport- 
 ing 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 neigh- 
 bours before, although they had sojourned in our street 
 
 ' Sent to Coventry. ' 
 
 ' Vf ' '■ up^vards of a fortnight), bethought her- 
 self of the timely resource offered to 
 
 her by the vicinity of these canine deau.r, 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 :\Iay, declining apparently to enter
 
 THE COPSE 77 
 
 their territories, brought them off to her own. This 
 manoeuvre has been repeated every day, with one 
 variation ; of the three dogs, the inrst a brindlc, 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 w ill 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 }'cars 
 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; away 
 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 lan- 
 guage. We must get on. What a winlr)- hedgerow
 
 -S OUR VILLAGE 
 
 tliis is for the eighteenth of April ! Trimrosy to be 
 sure, abundantly spangled with those stars of the earth, 
 
 but so bare, so leafless, so cold ! The wind whistles 
 
 througi^ 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 be- 
 tween clumps of elms, assumes so park-like an appear- 
 ance. Who is this approaching so slowly and majestic- 
 ally, this square bundle of petticoat and cloak, this 
 road-waggon of a woman? It is, it must be Mrs. 
 Sally Hearing, the completest specimen within my 
 knowledge of farmeresses (may I be allowed that in- 
 novation in language ?) as they were. It can be nobody 
 else. 
 
 Mrs. Sally ]\Iearing, when I first became acquainted 
 
 I
 
 /->. 
 
 'Mrs. Sally Mcaring.' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmillan &■ Co.
 
 THE COPSE 8, 
 
 with her, occupied, together with her father (a super- 
 annuated 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 statel)-, sub- 
 stantial building, whose lofty halls and spacious chambers 
 gave an air of grandeur to the common offices to \\hich 
 they were applied. Traces of gilding might yd 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 man- 
 sion, 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 ha}--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 com- 
 pound which she was wont to call smsj), together with 
 the invention of drill plough and thrashing-machines, 
 and other agricultural novelties, she failed not to attri- 
 bute 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 
 
 G
 
 S2 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 the flail, wielded by a stout right arm, such as she had 
 known in her >-outh (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 ver\' 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. 
 Sail)- displayed at sixty-five. 
 
 In spite of this contumacious rejection of agri- 
 cultural 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, j 
 The expiration of the lease w^as a grievance and a ' 
 puzzle of a different nature. Her landlord would have 1 
 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. Sall}^ had the
 
 THE COPSE 83 
 
 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 con- 
 scious 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 th.il (luarler loo,
 
 S4 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 and plenty of jests, which the honest farmer speedily 
 silenced, b)' telling all who joked on the subject that 
 he had given his lodger fair warning, that, let people 
 sa)- whai they would, he was quite determined not to 
 
 ' Giving his lodger fair ivai'iiing. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 i'y Macmillan &■ Co. 
 
 marry her: so that if she had any views that way, it 
 would be better for her to go elsewhere. This declara- 
 tion, which must be admitted to have been more re- 
 markable 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
 
 THE COPSE 85 
 
 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 un- 
 assailed (as far as I hear) by love or by scandal, with 
 no other grievance than an occasional dearth of em- 
 ployment 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 \\-ith feathers 
 in them ; — the last exceedingly sore subject being 
 introduced by poor Jane Davis (a cousin of Mr.s. 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 civilit)'. 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 woncUr if liicy
 
 S6 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 were to be followed by a legacy : I sincerely wish they 
 ma}-. Well, at last wc said good - bye ; when, on 
 
 
 '^^m 
 
 Copyright 1893 hy Mannillan &■ Co. 
 
 inquiring my destination, and hearing that I was bent 
 to the ten-acre copse (part of the farm which she ruled 
 so longj, she stopped me to tell a dismal story of two 
 sheep-stealers who, sixty years ago, were found hidden '
 
 THE COPSE 87 
 
 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 ! liut, 
 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 hedge- 
 rows, which we must cross to reach the copse. I low 
 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 sedatencss 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 harm- 
 less and innocent ' Ah, wretches ! villains ! rascals ! 
 
 four-footed mischiefs! canine plagues! Saladin ! 
 Brindle ! ' — They arc after the sheep^ — ' Saladin, I 
 say ! ' — ^They have actually singled out that prclt}' 
 spotted lamb — ' Brutes, if I catch you ! Saladin ! 
 Brindle!' We shall be taken up for shccp-stcaling
 
 88 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 }^ou now ! for 
 shame, Saladin ! Get away, Brindle ! See how good 
 May is. Off with }-ou, brutes ! For shame ! For 
 shame ! ' and brandishing a handkerchief, which could 
 
 ^"^ 
 
 
 
 
 • After the sheep. ' 
 
 hardly be an efficient instrument of correction, I suc- 
 ceeded in driv^ing away the two puppies, who after all 
 meant nothing more than play, although it was some- 
 what 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 grav^e 
 as a judge during the whole proceeding, keeping osten- 
 tatiously close to me, and taking no part whatever in 
 the mischief 
 
 The poor little j^retty lamb ! here it lies on the
 
 THE COPSE 89 
 
 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 adxcnturc 
 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 m\- 
 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, Maj' ? — 
 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 coi)se. Ah ! 
 only one half of the underwood was cut last year, and
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 the dthcr is at its full growth : hazel, brier, woodbine, 
 bramble, forming one impenetrable thicket, and almost 
 
 
 
 'V, 
 
 /':->« 
 
 vv-z 
 
 y 
 
 /A\)^/ 
 
 ' yy^e shameless villain Saladin. ' 
 
 Copyrisht 1893 'y Maaniaan&- Co. 
 
 /'Mfs, 
 
 uniting with the lower branches of the elms, and oaks, 
 and beeches, which rise at regular distances overhead. 
 No foot can penetrate that dense and thorny entangle-
 
 THE COPSE 
 
 91 
 
 mcnt ; 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 impre<T- 
 nates 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 ihcy 
 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, iMilU-rllics,
 
 92 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 ] 
 
 jialnis with their honeyed odours are out on the M'illow, j 
 
 ami the last lingering winter berries are dropping from I 
 
 the hawthorn, and making way for the bright and j 
 
 blossomy leaves. j 
 
 /
 
 THE WOOD
 
 g^/ie Wood 
 
 ^pric Q.oifi. — Spring is actually come now, with 
 the fulness and almost the suddenness of a 
 northern summer. To-day is complctcl)- 
 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 ; wc shall 
 certainly go in quest of the wood-sorrel, and will take 
 May, provided we can escape May's followers ; for
 
 ,)(. OUR XlLLAtiK 
 
 >iiKc Ihc adventure of the lamb, Saladin has had an 
 affair with a gander, furious in defence of his gosHngs, 
 in which rencontre the gander came off conqueror ; and 
 as geese abound in tlic wood to which we are going 
 
 ' Saladin s affair 'uiilk the Gander, 
 
 (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 wind- 
 ing lanes, between hedgerows tenderly green, till we
 
 THE WOOD 
 
 97 
 
 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 inter- 
 secting 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, ant! 
 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 onl)- 
 the silent flowers. 
 
 What a piece of fairy land ! The tall elms over- 
 head just bursting into tender vivid leaf, with here and 
 there a hoary oak or a silver-barked beech, cvcr\- 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 opcn- 
 II
 
 q8 our village 
 
 cvcd 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 \-et 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 \-oung 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
 
 THE WOOD 
 
 99 
 
 bush, now hitching our shawls in a bramble, still 
 gathering on, in spite of scratched fingers, till we had 
 
 ' Let us gather some. 
 
 Copyrisht 1893 by MacmiHan &■ Co. 
 
 nearly filled our baskets and began to talk ..f our 
 departure : — 
 
 ' But where is May ? May ! May ! No going home
 
 loo OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 re- 
 luctant to part with her prickly prize, how'ever trouble- 
 some 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, how^ever, to pat it 
 with her delicate cat-like paw, cautiously and daintily 
 applied, and caught back suddenly and rapidl}' 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 w^onder 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, somethincr devoid of sensation
 
 THE WOOD 
 
 and of will. At last my poor pet, thoroughly perplexed 
 and tired out, fairly relinquished the contest, and came 
 
 
 ' TAe hedgehog. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmillan &■ Co. 
 
 
 v/'/ 
 
 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 Ihghl of
 
 , J OUR VILLAGE 
 
 .1 wood-pigcon effectually diverted her attention ; and 
 Ellen amused herself by fanc)-ing 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 ap- 
 proaching 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 wood- 
 man'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 interrupted!}^ — a (ew 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
 
 THE WOOD 
 
 103 
 
 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 over- 
 mastering 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 move- 
 ments 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 ham- 
 mer 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 sublimeh' 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 conflagra- 
 tion. The deep flush fades away, and the rain begins 
 to descend ; and we hurry homeward rai)idl\', yet 
 sadly, forgetful alike of the flowers, the liedgchog, 
 and the wetting, thinking and talking only of the 
 fallen tree.
 
 THE DELL
 
 W^? 1)(ff: 
 
 ay 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 num- 
 ber, 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
 
 loS 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 ^rass 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 
 
 ' Half the cows in the street. ' 
 
 CopyrigJtt 1893 by Macmillan &■ Co. 
 
 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
 
 ' Poor blind Robert. '
 
 THE DELL m 
 
 to the season and the hour, — so bright, and gay, and 
 spring-Hke. 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 onl\^ broken by 
 bright tufts of blossomed broom. One or two old 
 pollards almost conceal the winding road that leads 
 down the descent, by the side of which a spring as 
 bright as crystal runs gurgling along. The dell itself 
 is an irregular piece of broken ground, in some parts 
 very deep, intersected by two or three high banks of 
 equal irregularity, now abrupt and bare, and rock- 
 like, now crowned with tufts of the feather)' \\ill()w 
 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 the.sc high
 
 ,12 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 banks that it owes its singular character of wildness 
 and varict}-. Now wc seem hemmc^l in by those 
 green cliffs, shut out from all the world, with nothing 
 visible but those verdant mounds and the deep blue 
 sk}- ; 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 
 the}' 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 pla}-ing 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 man}' 
 kittens, but with a gentleness, an assurance of sweet- 
 ness and innocence, which no kitten, nothing that ever 
 is to be a cat, can have. How complete and perfect 
 is their enjoyment of existence 1 Ah I 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 gravel}' 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
 
 THE DELL ,,, 
 
 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.^ 
 
 ' Ah / little rcurues ! ' 
 
 ^ I have seen one which afi'ecteil me mucli more. ^\'alkinJ^ in tlio 
 Church-lane with one of the young ladies of the vicarage, we met a largo 
 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 stopjiing 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 ti]i-top, if I may 
 venture such an expression. My young friend thought that llie lameness 
 
 I
 
 1,4 OUR \ILLAGK 
 
 Another turning of the dell gives a glimpse of the 
 dark coppice b}' which it is backed, and from which 
 wc are separated by some marshy, rush}- ground, \\here 
 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 1 Surely these excavations, 
 now so thoroughly clothed with vegetation, must origin- 
 all}' 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 home- 
 stead of our good neighbour Farmer Allen. 
 
 This rustic dwelling belongs to what used to be called 
 in this part of the countr}" ' a little bargain ' : thirty or 
 
 l)roceeded 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 
 tu 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 
 lachrj'mose 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.
 
 THE DELL 
 
 H5 
 
 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 dair\-, the poultr}- 
 
 ' Peaceful everwigs. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmillan &■ Co. 
 
 yard, and the orchard ;— an (jrdcr 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. I'armer 
 Allen himself is an excellent specimen, the . hccrful
 
 ,,6 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 venerable old man with his long white hair, and his 
 bri'^ht grey eye, and his wife is a still finer. They have 
 had a hard struggle to \\in through the world and keep 
 their little propcrt)' 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 peace- 
 ful evenings of a well-spent life as free from care and 
 anxiety as their best friends could desire. 
 
 Ah ! there is I\Ir. 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. 
 
 ]\Irs. Allen, my dear I\Irs. 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
 
 THE DELL 
 
 117 
 
 ever saw that grand specimen of woman — Mrs. Siddons. 
 The outHne of Mrs. Allen's face is exactly the same ; 
 but there is more softness, more gentleness, a more 
 feminine composure in the e}'e and in the smile. Mrs. 
 
 T/icre sits Mrs. Allen, feeding her poultry: 
 
 Allen never played Lad)- Macbeth. llcr hair, almost 
 as black as at twenty, is parted on her lar-c fair f. .re- 
 head, and combed under her exquisitely neat and snowy 
 cap ; a muslin neckerchief, a grey stuff gown and a 
 white apron complete the picture.
 
 1,8 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 smil- 
 ing, 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 ou'ght 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 ]\Irs. 
 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 Alay, 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
 
 -«?g&ife 
 
 
 Cojiyrli^ltl 1893 /y MatmilUin fjr d,
 
 THE DELL 121 
 
 her snake-like head into my hand, at once to invite the 
 caress which she Hkes 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 arc 
 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 la)- like soft vapour)- streaks along 
 the horizon, lighted up with a golden splendour that the 
 eye can scarceh' 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 sk\', and 
 then to see that magnificent picture refiected in the clear 
 and lovely Loddon water, is a pleasure never to be 
 described and never forgotten. Aly heart swells and 
 my eyes fill as I write of it, and think of the immeasur- 
 able majesty of nature, and the unspeakable goodness 
 of God, who has spread an enjoyment so pure, so peace- 
 ful, and so intense before the meanest and the lowliest 
 of His creatures.
 
 THE COWSLIP-BALL
 
 5^/?e ComsCip-BaO: 
 
 ly \6if\. — There are moments in life 
 when, without any visible or imme- 
 diate cause, the spirits sink and 
 fail, as it were, under tlie 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 pain- 
 ful ; friends lost, or changed, or dead ; hopes dis- 
 appointed 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 s(j happ\' as 
 not to have known some of them ?) will understand 
 why Alfieri became powerless, and Froissart dull ; ant! 
 why even needle-work, the most effectual scduti\-c, that 
 grand soother and composer of woman's tlistrcss, 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
 
 126 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 specific for nervousness. ' Plinij 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 )'ou ever see a cowslip-ball, m)- 
 
 >>VV^ ^aPivyt-yy>^vvy'^^'^' 
 
 
 ' I don' t mind 'em. 
 
 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 \\'ay to the 
 little farmhouse at the end. 'Through the farmyard
 
 THE COWSLIP-BALL 127 
 
 Lizzy ; over the gate ; never mind the cows ; they arc 
 quiet enough.' — ' I don't mind 'em,' said Miss Lizzy, 
 boldly and trul\-, and with a proud affronted air, dis- 
 pleased 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 }-ou don't, Lizzy ; but let them alone, and don't 
 chase the turkey-cock. Come to me, m}' 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 }'ard. Out he sallied, growling, 
 
 , from the depth of his kennel, erecting his tail, and 
 
 j shaking his long chain. May's attention was instantly 
 
 : diverted from the sow to this new pla\-mate, friend or 
 
 foe, she cared not which ; and he of the kennel, seeing 
 
 his charge unhurt, and out of danger, was at leisure to 
 
 I observe the charms of his fair enemj^ as she frolicked 
 
 ' round him, always beyond the reach of his chain, yet 
 
 ' alwa}'s, 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 
 
 I 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 whcat- 
 
 I field, and now over the gate. Stop! let me lift you
 
 128 
 
 OUR VILLAOK 
 
 down. No juini)inL;-, no breaking; of necks, Lizzy!' 
 And here wc arc 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, 
 
 'A Jlirtatio7i.' 
 
 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 j 
 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
 
 THE COWSLIP-BALL 129 
 
 in the light with a bubbhng 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 
 Hows between, so clear, so wide, so shallow, that Lizz}^, 
 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 sleep- 
 ing, half hidden, beneath the alders, and hawthorns, 
 and wild roses, with which the banks arc 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 
 1 Walton himself might have sitten by and loved, for 
 i trout are there ; we see them as they dart up the 
 j stream, and hear and start at the sudden plunge when 
 I they spring to the surface for the summer flies. Izaak 
 I Walton would have loved our brook and our quiet 
 
 , ^ Walking along these meadows one bright sunny afternoon, a year or 
 
 I two back, and rather later in the season, I had an opportunity of noticing a 
 
 I curious circumstance in natural history. .Standing close to the edge of the 
 
 ;' stream, I remarked a singular appearance t)n a large tuft of flags. It 
 
 ' looked like bunches of flowers, the leaves of which seemed dark, yet 
 
 j 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 fdmy wings. 
 
 Half an hour later we returned to the spot and they were gone. We had 
 
 .seen lln-ni at the very moment when beauty was complete and animation 
 
 dormant. 1 have since found nearly a similar account of this curious process 
 
 in Mr. Bingley's very entertaining work, called Ainnnil Hioi^rapliy. 
 
 K
 
 ,30 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 meadows ; they breathe the very spirit of his own 
 pcaccfuhiess, a soothing quietude that sinks into the 
 soul. There is no path through them, not one ; we 
 migiit 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 Newfound- 
 land, 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.
 
 THE COWSLIP-BALL 
 
 ' Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! ' 
 
 CoJ'yri^rht 1893 by Macmittan &• Co. 
 
 ' When daisies pied and violets blue 
 And lady-smocks all silver-while 
 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 
 
 Do paint the meadow-s with delight, 
 The cuckoo then, on every tree — ' 
 
 ' Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! ' cried Lizzy, brcakiiiL,^ in w ilii lu-r 
 clear chiklish voice ; and immediate])', as if at lu-r
 
 ,5.. OUR VILLAC.E 
 
 call, the real bird, from a neighbouring tree (for these 
 meadows are dottetl with timber like a park), began 
 to echo m\- lovel)- 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 melanchol}- ; and then the boys mimic him ; one 
 hears ' cuckoo I 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 vancjuishable 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 scramb- 
 ling, what shouting, what glee from Lizzy ! twenty 
 cuckoos might have sung unheard whilst she was pull- 
 ing her own flowers, and stealing mine, and laughing, 
 screaming, and talking through all. 
 
 At last the baskets were filled, and Lizz}- 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
 
 THE cowslii'-i;all 133 
 
 riband, till you have a long string like a garland ; then 
 to press them closely together, and tie them tightly up. 
 
 
 ^^^^ f^- 
 
 
 
 ,r> 
 
 Cf^-y^-^' 
 
 • Makiiij; the amslip-ball. ' 
 
 Cojiyrisht 1893 *)• Maemillan Cr Co 
 
 We went on very' prosperously, consideriui:: ; as jjcoplc 
 say of a young lady's drawing, or a Frenchman's l-Lnglisli, 
 or a woman's tragedy, or of the poor little dwarf who
 
 ,34 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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. T(j 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 think- 
 ing 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 ^Ia\-, 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 m}- 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
 
 THE COWSLIP-BALL 135 
 
 from heaven. Pleasant thoughts, delightful associa- 
 tions, awoke as I listened ; and almost unconsciously I 
 repeated to myself the beautiful story of the Lutist and 
 the Nightingale, from Ford's Lovers 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 liim down. 
 He could not run divisions with more art 
 Upon his quaking instrument than she. 
 The nightingale, did with her various notes 
 Reply to.
 
 ,36 OUR VILLAC.E 
 
 Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last 
 
 Into a pretty anger, that a bird, 
 
 Whom art had never taught cHffs, moods, or notes 
 
 Should vie with him for masterj^, 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 martjT) 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 I poor creature, I will soon revenge 
 
 This cruelty upon the author of it. 
 
 Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, 
 
 vShall 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 1 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 COWSLIP-KALL 
 
 137 
 
 the water. ' We shall have a storm. Lizzy ! May ! 
 where are }'e ? 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, t.xj true 
 a comrade, understands too well the laws of good-fellow- 
 ship ; so she waited for us. She did, to be sure, gallop
 
 •3S 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 oil before, and then stop and look back, and beckon, as 
 it were, with some scorn in her black eyes at the slow- 
 ness of our progress. We in the meanwhile got on as 
 fast as we could, encouraging and reproaching each 
 
 ' Cloaks and umbrellas. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macntilla?i &■ Co. 
 
 other. ' Faster, my Lizzy ! Oh, what a bad runner ! ' 
 — ' Faster, faster ! Oh, what a bad runner I ' echoed 
 my saucebox. ' You are so fat, Lizz}', }-ou make no 
 way ! ' — ' Ah ! who else is fat ? ' retorted the darling. 
 Certainly her mother is right ; I do spoil that child.
 
 THE COWSLIP-BALL 139 
 
 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 manfull}-. 
 May, a dog of excellent sense, went instantl}- to bed in 
 the stable, and is at this moment over head and ears in 
 straw ; Lizzy is gone to bed too, coa.xcd into that wise 
 measure by a promise of tea and toast, and of not 
 going home till to-morrow, and the story of Little Kvd 
 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-tlay, 
 it is rather pleasant than not. The little chill refreshes, 
 and our enjoyment of the subsccjucnt warnilh 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
 
 140 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 I am now ! Nothing like a shower-bath — a real 
 shower-bath, such as Lizzy and May and I have under- 
 Ljonc, to cure low spirits. Tr}- it, m}- dear readers, if 
 ever vc be nervous- — I will answer for its success. 
 
 y>^~^"f:%;;|;iP 
 
 9/ 
 
 
 ' -l/rt/ wen^ to bed. ' 
 
 
 
 es>^
 
 THE OLD HOUSE AT ABERLEKill
 
 ^fie OfcfjeGiiie ai ^S^rfglyf^, 
 
 -='ane l^~ik. — What a glowing glorious day ! 
 Summer in its richest prime, noon in its 
 most sparkling brightness, little white 
 clouds dappling the deep blue sl<)-,and the 
 sun, now partially veiled, and now burst- 
 ing 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 )-et it is probable 
 that we may be beguiled into a prett}' 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 I.oddon 
 river. ' Do not expect us before six o'clock,' said I, as 
 I left the house ; ' Six at soonest ! ' added my charm- 
 ing companion ; and off we drove in our little pony 
 chaise, drawn by our old mare, and \\'ith the good- 
 humoured urchin, Henry's successor, a sort of )'oungcr 
 Scrub, who takes care of horse and chaise, and cow and 
 garden, for our charioteer.
 
 i-n 
 
 OUR AILLACE 
 
 'Sly comrade in this homcl}' equipage was a young 
 lady of high famil)- and higher endowments, to whom 
 the noveky of the thing, and her own naturahiess of 
 eliaractcr and simpHcity of taste, gave an unspeakable 
 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 ' Offivc drcn-c' 
 
 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
 
 THE OLD HOUSE AT ABERLEIC.H 145 
 
 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 de- 
 rived 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 know- 
 ledge 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 uni- 
 versal 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 distinguislicd. 
 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, becau.se less envied, 
 than the ' palmy state ' of bcaut)\ Her prettincss is cf 
 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 intciii- 
 
 L
 
 140 
 
 C>L'R \1LLA(;K 
 
 gencc and good-humour ; the prettiest little feet and I 
 
 the whitest hands in the world ; — such is Emily I. j 
 
 She resides with her maternal grandmother, a vener- i 
 
 Iff/ i/ 
 
 
 
 Youth and age.' 
 
 Copyright 1893 ?^ Macmillan &■ Co. 
 
 able 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 f
 
 THE OLD MOUSE AT ARERLEIGII 147 
 
 is no seeing them without feehng an increase of respect 
 and affection for both grandmother and granddau<Thter 
 — 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, antl leave Richard to lake 
 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 ))ark, and still re- 
 tained something of the character, though the park 
 itself had long been broken into arable fields,- -and in
 
 148 
 
 OUR \1LLAGE 
 
 full view of tlie Great House, a beautiful structure of 
 J .lines the I'^irst's time, whose glasslcss windows and 
 dilapidated doors form a melancholy contrast with the 
 strcn<7th and entircncss of the rich and massive front. 
 
 ' Here we must alight !' 
 
 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 ;
 
 THE OLD HOUSE AT ARERLEIGH ,49 
 
 and the late owner, the last of his name and linea<^c, 
 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 car\ing 
 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 ha\'- 
 field, the grotto mouldering into ruin, and the fi.sh- 
 ponds choked with rushes and ac^uatic plants ; but 
 the shrubs and flowering trees are undestroycd, and 
 have grown into a magnificence of size and wildness of 
 beauty, such as we may imagine them to attain in 
 their native forests. Nothing can exceed their luxuri- 
 ance, especially in the spring, when the lilac, and 
 laburnum, and double-cherry put forth llicir gorgeous 
 blossoms. There is a sweet sadness in the sight of 
 such flowcriness amidst such desolation ; it .seems the 
 triumph of nature over the destructive power of man.
 
 ,50 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 memor\-. 
 
 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 pleasant- 
 est 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, Emil}- I farther \-et ! Force your way b}- 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
 
 THE OLD HOUSE AT ABERLEIGII ,5, 
 
 back the branches.' — After we had won our waj- 
 through the strait, at some expense of veils and flounces, 
 she stopped to contemplate and admire the tall, grace- 
 ful shrub, whose long thorny stems, spreading in ever}- 
 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 ! \\'hat 
 rose is it ? ' — ' Don't you know ? Did you never sec 
 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 ? — Xo ? 
 do not smell to it ; it is less sweet so than other roses ; 
 but one cluster 'in a vase, or even that bunch in )-(iur 
 bosom, will perfume a large room, as it tlocs the 
 summer air.'— ' Oh ! we will take twenty clusters,' saiil 
 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 sec 
 this ! ' 
 
 Echoing her wish, and well laden with musk ro.sc.s. 
 planted perhaps in the days of Shakspeare, we reached 
 the steps that led to a square suminer-hou.sc 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
 
 •52 
 
 OUR MLLAC.E 
 
 covered with iv)- 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 magni- 
 tude, towering like statel)^ columns over the dark tall 
 hrs, and giving a sort of pillared and architectural 
 grandeur to the scene. 
 
 W'c 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 wandow ; — grand- 
 mamma 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
 
 THE OLD HOUSE AT ABERLEIGH 153 
 
 me. But these small difficulties are pleasures to gay 
 and happy }-outh. 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 sharp- 
 ened 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 clay 
 Of ripest summer : o'er the deep blue sky 
 White speckled clouds came sailing peacefully, 
 
 Half-shrouding in a chequer'd \eil 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, ^ay 
 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
 
 ^fie ^arcf Jumnier. ^ 
 
 ~^ugust i^th. — Cold, cloudy, wind}-, wet. 
 Here we are, in the midst of the 
 dog-days, clustering merril\- round the 
 warm hearth like so man)- crickets, 
 instead of chirruping in the green 
 fields like that other merry insect 
 the grasshopper ; shivering under the influence of the 
 Jupiter Pbivius of England, the watery St. Switliin ; 
 peering at that scarce personage the sun, when he liap- 
 pens 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. P2verybody remarks it, and everybody com- 
 plains 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 thcrn. 
 Last year, in spite of the love which wc arc now 
 pleased to profess towards that ardent luininar\-, not one
 
 1 58 OUR VlLl.AC.K 
 
 (.if llic sun's inuncrous iulmircrs had courage to look liim 
 ill the face : there was no bearing the world till he had 
 said ' Good-night ' to it. Then we might stir : then we 
 began to wake and to live. All day long we languished 
 under his influence in a strange dreaminess, too hot to 
 work, too hot to read, too hot to write, too hot even to 
 talk ; sitting hour after hour in a green arbour, em- 
 bowered in leafiness, letting thought and fancy float as 
 they would. Those day-dreams were pretty things in 
 their way ; there is no denying that. But then, if one 
 half of the world were to dream through a whole summer, 
 like the sleeping I^eauty 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 sus- 
 jiicious 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 ; m}^ garden,
 
 ' Staring at a balloon.' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmiltan &■ Co.
 
 THE HARD SUMMER i6i 
 
 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 rcall\- 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 Jiortus sicais ; mummies of 
 plants, dried as in an oven ; hollyhocks, once pinlc, 
 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 wc 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 he 
 more pitiable, except indeed that of the travellers who 
 carried this misery about with them. I shall never for- 
 get the plight in which we met the coach one evening 
 in last Augu.st, full an hour after its time, .steeds and 
 driver, carriage and passengers, all one du-l. I h'- «>ut- 
 
 M
 
 1 6: 
 
 OUK VILLAGE 
 
 sides, 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 
 refu>^e in a wise and patient hopelessness, bent to endure 
 in silence the extremity of ill. The six insides, on the 
 contrar}', were still fighting against their fate, vainly 
 struo-gling to ameliorate their hapless destiny. They 
 
 ' All one dust.' 
 
 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 gentle- 
 man 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, |
 
 THE HARD SUMMER 
 
 163 
 
 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 
 
 r^-fp, 
 
 
 Thai poor hoy. 
 
 might. How perfectly I remember him, as well as tlic 
 pale girl who sat opposite, f^inning herself with her 
 bonnet into an absolute fever! They vanish.-.l after a 
 while into their own dust ; but I have them all before
 
 104 
 
 (H'R XILLAC.E 
 
 my eyes at lliis nioiiicnt, a companion picture to 
 Hogarth's ' Afternoon,' a standing lesson to the grumblers 
 at cold summers. 
 
 l-'or m\' part, I reall}' 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
 
 THE HARD SUMMER 
 
 »65 
 
 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 un- 
 matched in man, or woman, or a girl. They are patient, 
 too, and bear their fate as scape-goats (for all sins what- 
 
 
 --'^' ,*:•, 
 
 £. 
 
 1 cMtm^- M§:LMi y 
 
 ■ Cricket.'' 
 
 •■'Sit — 
 
 soever are laid as matters of course t(j their door), 
 whether at home or abroad, with amazing resignation ; 
 and, considering the many lies of whicli they are the 
 objects, they tell wonderfully {q.\\ in return. The worst 
 that can be said of them is, that they seldom, when 
 grown to man's estate, keep the promise of llu-ir boy- 
 hood ; 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 arc to notice from their
 
 i66 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 deHcatc 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 }'ou, 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 con- 
 jectured 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
 
 THE HARD SUMMER 
 
 167 
 
 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 
 
 f I \,mFM^ 
 
 ' T//t!>i/j you, Joe Kiiby. ' 
 
 Cofyrishl 1893 by Macmiltan & la. 
 
 at yonder farm on the top of the hill, where he is in .sucli 
 repute for intelligence and good-humour, that he has 
 the honour of performing all the errands of ihc house,
 
 loS 
 
 OUR N'lLLAGE 
 
 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 — 
 
 
 
 ' Carter s boy.' 
 
 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 twent}- 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
 
 THE HARD SUMMER ,69 
 
 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. Neverthe- 
 less, in the best-ordered states there will be grumblers, 
 and we have an opposition here in the shape of Jem 
 Eusden. 
 
 Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or there- 
 about, lean, small, and short, yet strong and active. 
 His face is of an extraordinarx' 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 arra\-ed in the blue 
 cap and old-fashioned coat, the costume of an endowed 
 school to which he belongs ; where he sits still all da\', 
 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 neces.sary to a splendid 
 success in that vocation, —a strong voice, a (hiciit utter- 
 ance, an incessant iteration, and a frontless imiuidencc. 
 He is a great 'scholar' too, to use the country phrase ; 
 his ' piece,' as our village schoolmaster terms a fine sheet
 
 170 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 t)f nourishing writing, something between a valentine 
 and a sampler, enclosed within a border of little coloured 
 prints — his last, I remember, was encircled b)^ an 
 engraved history of IMoses, 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 — j\Iontein 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 I 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 \-oungsters in general and himself in 
 particular — and Jem's adherents left him on the spot — 
 they ratted, to a man, that very evening. Notwith- 
 standing 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
 
 THE HARD SUMMER 
 
 J7I 
 
 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, ^\'hat 
 
 ' Scpcabbliiig. ' 
 
 J^V 
 
 an ill-conditioned hobg(;blin it is 1 .\nd yet there is 
 something bold and sturdy about him too. I should 
 miss Jem Eusden. 
 
 Ah, there is another deserter fr(;m the parlx- ! my 
 friend the little hussar- -I do not know his name, and 
 call him after his cap and jacket. He is a veryrc- 
 markable person, about the age of eight \cars, the
 
 «7^ 
 
 OUR XILLACE 
 
 \-ouiigcst piece of gravity and dignity 1 ever en- 
 countered ; short, and square, and upright, and slow, 
 with a iinc bronzed flat visage, resembling those con- 
 vertible 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 
 fiice 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 inclcc : I doubt, indeed, if he 
 have one, which may be partly the reason of a circum- 
 stance 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 discrimi- 
 nation of the innocent from the guilty, the activity of 
 Jem's friendship would get the poor hussar ten drub- 
 bings 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 sun- 
 shiny day to-morrow, — a blessing not to be under-
 
 THE HARD SIJMMKR 
 
 >73 
 
 valued, in spite of my late vituperation of heat. Shall 
 we go home now ? And shall we take the longest 
 but prettiest road, that b)^ the green lanes ? This 
 way, to the left, round the corner of the common, past 
 
 ' The Utile hussar. ' 
 
 Mr. Welles's cottage, and our patli lies straight before 
 us. How snug and comfortable that cottage looks! 
 Its little yard all alive with the cow, and the marc-, 
 and the colt almost as large as the marc, and tlu- 
 young foal, and the great yard-dog, all so fat ! ]-\-ncc.l
 
 '74 
 
 OUK VILLAGE 
 
 in with ha)'-rick, and wheat-rick, and bean-stack, and 
 backed by the long garden, the spacious dr}-ing-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,' i 
 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 I 
 at the times, and is called Master Welles, — the title ' 
 next to Mister — that by which Shakspeare was called ; j 
 — 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 
 hi£;;h elms will shut out the little twilierht that remains.
 
 THE HARD SUMMER 
 
 175 
 
 Ah, but \vc shall have the fairies' lamps to guide us, the 
 stars of the earth, the glow-worms I Here they arc, 
 
 ^-7fi./yJlt>'''^^''^- 
 
 
 ■L 
 
 
 
 three almost together. Do you not see tlieiii ? One 
 seems tremulous, vibrating, as if on the extremity of .1 
 leaf of grass ; the others are deeper in the hedge, in
 
 176 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 some green cell on which their h'ght falls with an emerald 
 lustre. I hope my friends the cricketers will not come 
 this wa}- home. I would not have the prett}' creatures 
 removed for more than I care to say, and in this matter 
 I would hardly trust Joe Kirby — boys so love to stick 
 them in their hats. But this lane is quite deserted. It 
 is only a road from field to field. No one comes here 
 at this hour. They are quite safe ; and I shall walk 
 here to-morrow and visit them again. And now, good- 
 night ! beautiful insects, lamps of the fairies, good-night !
 
 THE SHAW 
 
 N
 
 cptanbcr gtJi. — A bright sunshin\- after- 
 noon. What a comfort it is to get out 
 again — to sec once more that rarity 
 of rarities, a fine da}- ! We English 
 people are accused of talking over- 
 much 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. Jkit though wc maj- liavc, 
 and did have, fires all through the dog-days, there i.s 
 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 J(;b or Gri/zel ; especially if
 
 I So OUR VILLAGE 
 
 Job were a fanner, and Grizzel a country gentlcwonian. 
 Never was known such a season ! Hay swimming, 
 cattle drowning, fruit rotting, corn spoiling ! and that 
 naughty river, the Loddon, who never can take Tuff'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 7-eigns 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 't '" 
 
 So far my friend.^ In short, whether in prose or in 
 verse, everybody railed at the weather. But this is over 
 
 ^ 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 stiiiiuli, want of money or want 
 of admiration, to take due pains — would inevitably become a clever writer. 
 As it is, her notes and jetix d: esprit struck off a trait de plume, have great 
 point and neatness. Take the following billet, which formed the label to
 
 THE SHAW ,S, 
 
 now. The sun has come to dry the world ; mud is 
 turned into dust ; rivers have retreated to their proper 
 Hmits ; 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 com- 
 panions being a stranger to the gentle reader, we must 
 do him the honour of an introduction. 
 
 Dogs, when they arc sure of having their own \\i\\\ 
 have sometimes ways as odd as those of the un furred, 
 unfeathered animals, who walk on two legs, and talk, 
 and are called rational. My beautiful white gre)-hound, 
 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 a[)pealing to the charit)' of 
 old Rachael Strong, the laundress — a dog-lover by pro- 
 fession ; 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 solilar)- drover, 
 discussing his dinner or supper on the alchousc-bciu h : 
 
 a closed basket, containing the ponderous present alluded to, last Micliaei- 
 
 nias 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 Roose ! " 
 ' Dead, alas, since this was written.
 
 l82 OUR VILI.AC.K 
 
 now catching a mouthful, flung to him in pure con- 
 tempt by some scornful gentleman of the shoulder-knot, 
 mounted on his throne, the coach-box, whose notice he 
 had attracted by dint of ugliness ; now sharing the 
 commons of Master Keep the shoemaker's pigs ; 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 b\- 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 sorr\- carcase, some com- 
 fort in his disconsolate condition. 
 
 In this plight was he found by ^la.y, 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 oppo- 
 sition, by the activity of her protection, and the per- 
 tinacity 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
 
 ^Mf 
 
 ?i. 
 
 ' By sheer beggary. '
 
 THE SHAW 
 
 185 
 
 of a spaniel ; at least there is in his mongrel composi- 
 tion 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 
 
 ' Maid and boy, and mistress and master: 
 
 CoJ'yriglU 1893 hy MacmiUait Sr Co. 
 
 peculiar one-sided awkwardness to his gait; IjuI in- 
 dependently 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 mcst 
 faithful, attached, and affecti(.nate animal thai I have
 
 iS6 
 
 OUR VILLAC.i: 
 
 ever known ; and that is saying much. He seems to ' 
 think it neccssan- to atone for liis ugliness b}- extra j 
 ijootl conduct, and docs so dance on his lame leg, and ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 ;^': 
 
 -v^. 
 
 'He likes Dash: 
 
 so wag his scrubb\- 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 strancfers come in
 
 THE SHAW ,S7 
 
 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 co\cr 
 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 imi- 
 tative class. And now Dash and Ma}' follow us every- 
 where, 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 Hint- 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 mcjnth 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 cltnids that Hit over it ; 
 and loiter at the wheeler's .shop, always picturcsciuc, 
 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 siii;^ini;, and
 
 iSS 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 making;" a various harnion\' also. The shop is rather | 
 empty to-day, for its usual inmates are busy on the I 
 <:[rccn beyond the pond — one set building a cart, another 
 painting a waggon. And then we leave tlie village 
 
 
 
 
 ' A battle. ' 
 
 
 Copyri,q;ht 1893 hy Maanillan &■ Co. 
 
 
 quite behind, and proceed slowly up the cool, quiet lane, 
 between tall hedgerows of the darkest verdure, over- 
 shadowing banks green and fresh as an emerald. 
 
 Xot so quick as I expected, though — for they are 
 shooting here to-day, as Dash and I have both dis- 
 covered : he with great delight, for a gun to him is as
 
 THE SHAW 189 
 
 a trumpet to a war-horse ; I w ith 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 fielcis, 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 Wcstons 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, piti- 
 ful and indignant as the female world is wont to he on 
 such occasions. Every woman in the parish railed at 
 Master Weston ; and poor Master Weston was summoncti 
 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.
 
 I90 
 
 OUK MLLAOK 
 
 At the end of that time he was discovered, and 
 brought to the bench ; and Dame Weston again told 
 her stor\', and, as l)cfore, on the full cr\'. She had no 
 witnesses, and the bruises of which she made complaint 
 
 ' The Bench.' 
 
 Cofyri<^ht 1893 by MaoniilaJt &' Co. 
 
 had disappeared, and there were no women present to 
 make common cause with the sex. Still, however, the 
 general feeling was against Master \\'eston ; and it 
 would have gone hard with him when he was called in, 
 if a most unexpected witness had not risen up in his
 
 THE SIIA^Y 
 
 191 
 
 favour. His wife had brought in her arms a little girl 
 about eighteen months old, partly perhaps to move com- 
 passion in her favour ; for a woman with a child in her 
 
 'Daddy! daddy f 
 
 arms is always an object that excites kind feelings. 
 The little girl had looked sh)' and frightened, and had 
 been as quiet as a lamb during her mother's examina- 
 tion ; but she no sooner saw her father, from whom
 
 102 OUR \ILLALiK 
 
 she had been a fortnight separated, than she clapped 
 her hands, and laughed, and cried, ' Daddy I daddy ! ' 
 and sprang into his arms, and hung round his neck, 
 and covered him with kisses — again shouting, ' Dadd}-, 
 come home ! dadd}' I daddy ! ' — and finally nestled 
 her little head in his bosom, with a fulness of content- 
 ment, 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 magis- 
 trates acted in the very spirit of the Jewish monarch : 
 the}' accepted the evidence of nature, and dismissed the 
 complaint. And subsequent events have full}' justified 
 their decision ; ^Mistress Weston proving not only re- 
 nowned 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 her- 
 self addicted to administering the conjugal discipline, 
 the infliction of which she was pleased to impute to her 
 luckless husband. 
 
 Xow 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 I 
 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 ;
 
 THE SHAW 
 
 '93 
 
 and then, when the notes prove too high for him, con- 
 tinuing the air in a whistle, until he has turned the 
 impassable corner ; then taking up again the song and 
 the words, 'Home! sweet Ihnne ! ' and looking as if 
 he felt their full import, ploughbo)- 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 l.arncd to 
 desire. Oh, to be as cheaply and as thoroughly con- 
 tented as George Coper ! All his luxuries a cricket- 
 match !— all his wants satisfied in ' home ! sweet home ! ' 
 
 O
 
 194 OUR VlLLACiK 
 
 Nothing but noises to-day ! They are clearing 
 I^irmer l^rookc'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 appear- 
 ance, bearing no small resemblance to the pet spaniel of 
 my friend Master Dinel}', 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 as- 
 signing 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
 
 - THE SHAW ,95 
 
 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, aiid 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.
 
 NUTTIN(;
 
 Co 
 
 ./Yutfirt^. 
 
 ^ef>fem(^cr ^(if^. — One of those delicious 
 autumnal days, when the air, the skv, 
 and the earth seem lulled into a universal 
 calm, softer and milder even than Ma)-. 
 We sallied forth for a walk, in a mood 
 congenial to the weather and the season, avoidinq-, b}- 
 mutual consent, the bright antl sunn}- common, ami the 
 gay highroad, and stealing through shad}^, unfretiucntcd 
 lanes, where we were not likely to meet an\- one, — not 
 even the pretty family procession which in other j-cars 
 we used to contemplate with so much interest the father, 
 mother, and children, returning from the wheat-field, tlic 
 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 (he 
 mother would carry her babe hushing and lulling it, 
 and the father and an elder child truflgcd after with the 
 cradle, all seeming weary and all happy. \Vc shall not 
 see such a procession as this to-day ; f<>y ih'' harvest is
 
 200 OUR V ILL ACE 
 
 nearly over, the fields arc deserted, the silence may almost 
 be felt. Except the wintry notes of the redbreast, 
 nature herself is mute. ]^ut 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 fur7X, 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 close- 
 ness. 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 b\- 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 ^ladame 
 Laroche-Jacquelin's most interesting book.^ I am sure 
 
 ^ An almost equally interesting account of that very peculiar and interest- 
 ing scenery, may be found in The Maid of La Vendee, an English novel,
 
 NUTTING 201 
 
 if wood can entitle a country to be called Lc Boca<;c. 
 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 ! the}- 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 tliat 
 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, alreadj- 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, 
 
 remarkal)le for its simplicity and truth of painting, written l.y Mrs. I.cNoir, 
 the daughter of Cliristophcr Smart, an inlierilrix of much of Ills lalcni. I Icr 
 works deserve to be better known. 
 
 ^ ' Dcedily,'— I am not quite sure that this wor.l is good Knglish : Iml 
 it is genuine Hampshire, and is used by the most correct of fi-malc v^. 
 Miss Austen. It means (and it is no small merit thai il l>a» i... 
 synonym) anything done with a profound an<l plo<i<ling allcntion. an acli..h 
 which engrosses all the powers of mind and bo<ly.
 
 OUR VILl.ACE 
 
 h.'irtl, juicy morsel and now from another. — Is not that 
 a pretty English picture ? And then, farther up the 
 
 
 
 ^/rlQ., 
 
 ^ ^-';, -W^i V^ •vfJs ■ ' -^m '§^^ 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 ' In the apple-trer.' 
 
 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
 
 NUTTING 
 
 203 
 
 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 might}' 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 prctt\- 
 picture ? And they arc such a handsome family too, 
 the Brookers. I do not know that there is any gips\- 
 blood, but there is the true gipsy complexion, richl}- 
 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 Li/.zy, the 
 prettiest of fair children, would look poor and watcrj- 
 by the side of Willy Brooker, the sober little personage 
 who is picking up the apples with his small chubbj- 
 hands, and filling the basket so orderly, next to his 
 father the most useful man in the field. ' W ill\- 1 ' 
 He hears without seeing ; for we are quite Jiiddcn In- 
 the high bank, and a spreading hawthorn bush that over- 
 tops 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 sudilen 
 wonder, the long silky eyelashes thrown back till tlicy 
 rest on the delicate brow, and a deeper blush is hunn'np 
 on those dark cheek.s, and a smile is dimpling alx.ut 
 those scarlet lip.s. l^ut the voice is silent now, and the 
 little quiet boy, after a moment's pause, is gone coolly
 
 204 
 
 (.>L'K \ 11,1. Alii". 
 
 to work again. He is indeed a most lovcl\- child. I 
 think some da)- or other he must marry Li/./.y ; I shall 
 propose the match to their respective mammas. At 
 present the parties are rather too }'oung for a wedding 
 — tiie intended bridegroom being, as I should judge, 
 six, or thereabout, and the fair bride barely five, — but 
 at least we might ha\-e a betrothment after the ro}'al 
 fashion, — there could be no liarm 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 Will}' would open his innocent black eyes, and 
 wonder what was going forward. They would be the 
 very Oberon and Titania of the village, the fair\' king 
 and queen. 
 
 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 dais)-, — peeping out from beneath the 
 snow, looking at itself in the ice, smiling through the 
 tempests of life, and }-et wclccMuing and enjo)-ing the 
 sunbeams. Oh, to be like that flower I 
 
 The little spring that has been bubbling under the 
 hedge all along the hillside, begins, now that we ha\e
 
 Nin TING 205 
 
 niounted the eminence and are imperceptibly descending, 
 to deviate into a capricious variety of clear deep pools 
 and channels, so narrow and so choked witli weeds, 
 that a child might overstep them. The hedge has also 
 changed its character. It is no longer the close com- 
 pact vegetable wall of hawthorn, and ma])le, 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 over- 
 hanging 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
 
 2o6 OUR MLl.AC.E 
 
 tlic )-oung- 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 straw- 
 berries, 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 fox- 
 hunter. 
 
 Oh, what enjoyment this nut-gathering is ! They 
 are in such abundance, that it seems as if there were 
 not a boy in the parish, nor a young man, nor a young 
 woman, — for a basket of nuts is the universal tribute 
 of country gallantry ; our pretty damsel Harriet has 
 had at least half a dozen this season ; but no one has 
 found out these. And they are so full too, we lose 
 half of them from over-ripeness ; they drop from the 
 socket at the slightest motion. If we lose, there is one 
 who finds. May is as fond of nuts as a squirrel, and 
 cracks the shell and extracts the kernel with equal 
 dexterity. Her white glossy head is upturned now to 
 watch them as they fall. See how her neck is thrown
 
 NUTTING 207 
 
 back like that of a swan, and how beautifully her folded 
 ears quiver with expectation, and how her quick e}-e 
 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
 
 "t/fiQ n^sit 
 
 <5k)Wr 27'tk. — A lovely autumnal daj' ; 
 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 zca/Zc (if I 
 may use the Irish figure of speech called a bull) will 
 be a ridt\ 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 wIkj had 
 driven her, she assumes the reins, and off we set. 
 
 My fair companion is a person whom nature and
 
 212 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 b}- 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 jMadame 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.
 
 THE VISIT 213 
 
 l^ut we must get on. What would she say if she 
 knew I was putting her into print ? We must get on 
 uj:) the hill. x*\h ! that is precisely what we are not likel}- 
 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 sulk\'. 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 wliij), 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 ! 
 l^ut 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, noiv he is out of sight, and will 
 undoubtedly so continue till he meets us at the lawn 
 gate. Well ! there is no great harm. It is only 
 prolonging the pleasure of enjoying together this 
 charming scenery in this fine weather. If once we 
 make up our minds not to care how slowly our steed 
 goes, not to fret ourselves by vain exertions, it is no 
 matter what his pace may be. There is little doubt of 
 his getting home by sunset, 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 our.s. All liis se.x are 
 sticklers for dominion, though, when it is undisputed,
 
 214 
 
 OUR XILLAC.E 
 
 some of thcin are generous enough to abandon it. 
 Two or three of the most discreet wives of my 
 accjuaintance contrive to manage their husbands 
 suflkicntlv with no better secret than this seeming 
 
 ' A fi?tc noble animal.' 
 
 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
 
 THE VLSIT 215 
 
 that lay bathctl 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 ! Cowi)cr has 
 described it for me. How perpetually, as we walk in
 
 216 OUR \illac;e 
 
 tlie countr}', his vivid pictures recur to the memory ! 
 Here is his common and mine ! 
 
 ' Tlie ronimon overgrown with fern, and rough 
 Witli prickly gorsc, 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.
 
 THE VISIT 
 
 ;i7 
 
 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 
 
 J'rcii/uc to the foiitman. 
 
 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
 
 2i8 OUR \illac;e 
 
 those of other people ' is ahnost equal to that of Liston ; 
 and indeed the original face, fiat 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 iiabit 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. Every- 
 body 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 school- 
 master, a most worthy King Log, whom Ben dumbfounds 
 twent}' 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 wc 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 VISIT 
 
 !I9 
 
 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 }'onder 
 clump ; and a group of younger elves collecting as man)- 
 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 crackcry 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 fiiuio 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 nuunbers aiul 
 their unity of purpose, a sort of collective and cor[K)rate 
 wisdom. Yet geese congregate also ; and geese never 
 by any chance look wise. But tlicn geese arc a 
 domestic fowl ; we have spoiled them ; and rooks are
 
 220 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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. 
 
 W'liat a labxM-inth 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 com- 
 panion 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 \\ill 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
 
 THE VISIT 221 
 
 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 
 
 -1 „„'* 1 / 
 
 
 i 
 
 — v 
 
 V 
 
 ■^ 
 
 
 - k3 
 
 \ 
 i. 
 
 ^ \ 
 
 1 
 
 U 
 
 J 
 
 
 The mill team.'' 
 
 immediate difficulties, has parted from us with a very 
 civil bow and good-humoured smile, as one wlio 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 maiil>' cmi)loyments. 
 He has done us great good though, and may be allowed 
 his little feeling of .superiority. The parting .salute lie
 
 223 OUR VILLAC.E 
 
 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 farm- 
 house 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 
 iust 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 : — 
 
 ' Hui(e trunks ! and each particular trunk a growth 
 Of intertwisted fibres serpentine 
 Up-coihng, and invet'rately convolved.' 
 
 Wordsworth.
 
 THE VISIT 223 
 
 No village church was over 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 exist- 
 ence ; 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 imper- 
 vious 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
 
 224 
 
 OUR VIIJ.AC.E 
 
 pines. The robins arc singing around us, as if the}- 
 too felt the magic of the hour. How gracefully the 
 road winds through the leafy labyrinth, leading imper- 
 ceptibly to the more ornamented sweep. Here we are 
 at the door amidst geraniums, and carnations, and jas- 
 mines, 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 wc arc 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 28//^ — Another soft and brilliant morning. 
 But the pleasures of to-day must be written in short- 
 hand. I have left myself no room for notes of admira- 
 tion. 
 
 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 the}- 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 valle}-, then a sharp 
 ascent to an eminence commandincf an immense extent
 
 THE VISIT 225 
 
 of prospect, have a striking- air of natural beaut}', de- 
 veloped and heightened by the perfection of art. All 
 this, indeed, was familiar to nie ; 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, hang- 
 ing 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 fn^ni 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 sun- 
 
 Q
 
 226 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 shine and the beaut}-. This coppice is a place to hve 
 and die in. I^ut 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 b)' 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 an\' part of England, rare above all in this 
 rich and lovely but monotonous count)-. It is Switzer- 
 land in miniature. 
 
 And now wc cross the hill to pay a morning visit 
 to the famil}- at the great house, — another fine place, 
 commanding another fine sweep of country. The 
 park, studded with old trees, and sinking gently into 
 a vallc}-, 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, how- 
 ever, 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 Sabsan, and now in this low autumn sun pro- 
 ducing 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 
 loft}', 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 
 
 ^ The dital harp.
 
 THE VISIT 
 
 227 
 
 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 modula- 
 tions 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 c^uick 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 tlian of the earth seems that high strain, 
 
 A spirit's song, and worthy of the train 
 
 That soothed old Prospero with music rare.
 
 HANNAH BINT
 
 
 /•t 
 
 'T&nnafi /^Ini'. 
 
 HE 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 cov'ered with 
 fine growing timber — ash, and oak, and ehii, 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 brion}-, 
 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 sea!, and fcM'get- 
 me-not, crowded together with a profusion atul brilliancy 
 of colour, such as I have rarely seen equalled e\-cn in 
 a garden. Here the wild hyacinth really enamels the 
 ground with its fresh and lovely purple ; there,
 
 232 OUR \ILLAGE 
 
 ' 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 swelHng in gentle 
 accents, now dimpHng 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 floweri- 
 ness ; 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 }-oung foliage is 
 undoubtedly the choicest ornament of the forest in 
 spring.
 
 HANNAH BINT 233 
 
 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 Ma}- 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 l^int rises from amidst the prctt)- garden, which 
 lies bathed in the sunshine around it. 
 
 The living and moving accessories are all in ]<ceping 
 with the cheerfulness and repose of the landsca])c. 1 lan- 
 nah's cow grazing quietl\' besifle tlie keeper's pf)ny; a 
 brace of fat pointer puppies holding amicable intercourse 
 with a litter of young pigs ; ducks, geese, cocks, licii'^, and
 
 234 OUR \illa(;e 
 
 chickens scattered over the turf; Hannah herself sall\-ing 
 forth from the cottage-door, with her milk-bucket in her 
 hand, and her little brother follo\\ing\vith thcmilking-stool. 
 ]\I\- 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, in- 
 deed 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 punctualh% 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.
 
 HANNAH BINT 
 
 235 
 
 sitting in warm and comfortable rooms, can rcadil\- 
 imagine. For certain, our drover could never resist 
 
 'Jack Biut, aided by Jack Bint' x famous dog. Watch.' 
 
 the gentle seduction of the gin-bottle, and being of a 
 free, merry, jovial temperament, one of lliosc persons 
 commonly called good fellows, who like to see others
 
 236 OUR VILLAC.E 
 
 happy in the same way with themselves, he was apt to 
 circulate it at his own expense, to the great improve- 
 ment 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 famil}' 
 at home were comfortably supported b\' 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 sturd}- independence of the 
 English character. Our little damsel possessed this
 
 HANNAH BINT ' lyj 
 
 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 objecticMi. J^\irmcr 
 Oakley and the parish were quite distinct things. Of 
 him, accordingly, she asked, not monc}', 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 woukl n(jt 
 promise ! ' and, partly amused, partly interested by the 
 child's earnestness, the wealthy yeoman gave licr, not 
 as a purchase, but as a present, a very fmc young 
 Alderney. She then went to the lord of the manor,
 
 238 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 and, with equal knowledge of character, begged his 
 permission to keep her cow on the Shaw common. 
 
 ' To the lord of the manor. ' 
 
 Copyright 1893 by Macmiltan &■ Co. 
 
 ' 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 —
 
 HANNAH BINT 239 
 
 half, not to be outdone in liberality b\- 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 ha\-e chosen an 
 occupation more completely unoccupied, or more loudh' 
 called for. One of the most provoking of the pett\- 
 difficulties which beset people with a small establish- 
 ment in this neighbourhood, is the trouble, almost the 
 impossibility, of procuring the pastoral luxuries of 
 milk, eggs, and butter, which rank, unfortunatel}-, 
 amongst the indispensable necessaries of housekeeping. 
 To your thoroughbred Londoner, who, whilst grumbling 
 over his own breakfast, is apt to fanc}' 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 poultr)' ; and 
 that we unlucky villagers sit down often to our Hrst 
 meal in a .state of destitution, which ma\' well make 
 him content with his thin milk and his Cambridge 
 butter, when compared to our imputed pastoralities. 
 
 Hannah's Alderncy 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 i)lea.sed him.self 
 with bringing home, the china tea-service, the gilded
 
 240 
 
 OUR VILLACE 
 
 mugs, and the painted waiters, for the useful utensils of 
 the dair}-, and speedily established a regular and gain- 
 ful trade in milk, eggs, butter, hone}-, and poultry — for 
 poultry they had always kept. 
 
 Her domestic management prospered equally. Her 
 
 'Admission io the charity-school.' 
 
 father, who retained the perfect use of his hands, began 
 a manufacture of mats and baskets, which he con- 
 structed 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
 
 HANNAH BINT 241 
 
 the COW, and enlarged and cultivated the garden 
 (ahvays 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 famil\-, 
 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 charit)'-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 annoy- 
 ance 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 ma}-, possibh-, 
 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 [ligs, her bees, 
 her poultry, have each, in their several waj's, thri\cn 
 and prospered. She has even brought Watch to like 
 butter-milk, as well as strong beer, and has nearly per- 
 
 R
 
 242 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 suadcd her father (to whose wants and wishes she is 
 most anxiously attentive) to accept of milk as a sub- 
 stitute 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 falsif)'ing 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
 
 
 ^y,.., 
 
 ' As much like lovers. '
 
 HANNAH BINT 
 
 245 
 
 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, \\ild 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 ])rcU}', 
 and Ned Miles has discovered that she is so. There 
 he stands, the rogue, close at her side Tfor he halh 
 joined her whilst we have been telling her little stor}-,
 
 246 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 dav.
 
 THE FALL OF THJ' Ll-AF
 
 
 ^-W^ 
 
 d-^. 
 
 -^^s^- 
 
 W^^f'-'i^rXi 
 
 
 /-^•5> 
 
 ,^/<. 
 
 me %irfcffPie Ha/. 
 
 -1^ 
 
 ^F 
 
 i«i^^ 
 
 ,Oi;cm6er ^f/x.-- The weather is as peaceful 
 to-day, as cahri, and as mild, as in early 
 ,y, uwni. ^IA/y :\l April; and, perhaps, an autumn after- 
 'c^mMilM^/lU noon and a spring morning do resemble 
 each other more in feeling, and even in 
 appearance, than any two periods of the }'ear. 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. Wwt 
 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 tlie 
 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.
 
 250 OUR \illac;e 
 
 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 suret}^ 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 countr}' walk 
 to be, but not too lonely, which women never like ; lead- 
 ing 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 boi'ders 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 FALL OF THE LEAF 251 
 
 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 
 
 ' The little post-boy. ' 
 
 of (Mic tint, still blowing in spite of the season, and ruddy 
 berries glowing through all. How very beautii'ul is the 
 lane ! 
 
 And how pleasant is this hill where the ro.'id widens, 
 with the group of cattle by the wayside, and (ieorgc
 
 252 OUR \ 11. LACE 
 
 llcarn, the little post-bo\-, trundling his hoop at full 
 speed, making all the better haste in his work, because 
 he cheats himself into thinking it play I 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,- — with- 
 out 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 merr\' 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 \\alk. Dash is showing us the way and 
 beating the thick double liedgerow 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
 
 THE FALL OF THE LEAF 
 
 253 
 
 whirring of those splendid wings, as the princely bird 
 himself would have been at the report of a gun. Indeed, 
 
 ,//// it phctuiuit ! a superb cock pheasant !' 
 
 I believe that the way in which a pheasant gc)cs off, 
 does sometimes make ycnuig sportsmen a little- nervous,
 
 254 
 
 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 (they don't own it very rcadih-, but the observation may 
 be rehed 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 }-ears 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
 
 THE FALL OF TJIE LEAF 
 
 255 
 
 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 
 
 
 3i- 
 
 Grazing under the tall elms. ' 
 
 holly on the one side, seems to vie in beauty \\itli the 
 picturesque old paling, the bright laurels, and the plum\' 
 cedars, on the other ; — down that shady lane, until the 
 sudden turn brings us to an opening where four ro.ids 
 meet, where a noble avenue turns (fown to the (ircat 
 House ; where the village church rears its motlest spire 
 from amidst its venerable yew trees : and where, em- 
 bosomed in orchards and gardens, and backed by bains
 
 256 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 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 iireside, 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 I what a climate this is, that one can- 
 not 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. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Ediniargk. 
 
 J
 
 PR 
 OS 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 STACK COLLECTION 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 rAPfei:5 1974":^ 
 
 10m-6,'62(C97-Jisd)476D
 
 UC SOUTHERN |g^^^^^^^ 
 
 A A 001 424 474 
 
 A