fine speeches by a very stout, sturdy, steady “No;” and even inflicted a similar sentence (although so mildly, that Daniel did not quite despair) on his young rival; for Sally, who was seventeen last Candlemas-day, had been engaged these three years! sence, like a knight of Amadis his day. Never was preux chevalier so devoted to the lady of his love. Every letter home contained some tender message or fond inquiry; and although the messages became gradually less and less intelligible, as the small pedantry of the country schoolboy ripened into the full-blown affectation of the London apprentice, still Sally was far from quarrelling with a love-message, on so small a ground as not understanding it; whilst, however mysterious his words might seem, his presents spoke his affection in a more homely and convincing language. Of such tokens there was no lack. The very first packet that he sent home, consisting of worsted mittens for his old grandmother, a pair of cotton hose for his sister, and a nightcap for his father, contained also a pair of scarlet garters for Sally; which attention was followed up at every opportunity by pincushions, ribbons, thimbles, needle-cases, and as great a variety of female ware as that with which Autolycus's basket was furnished. No wonder that Sally, in spite of occasional flirtations with Daniel Tubb, continued tolerably constant; especially as one of Stephen's sisters, who had been at service in London, affirmed that he was so much improved, as to be one of the smartest beaux in all Cheapside. So affairs continued until this identical Val The love affair had begun at the Free School at Aberleigh; and the object of it, by name Stephen Long, was the son of a little farmer in the neighbourhood, and about the same age with his fair mistress. There the resemblance ceased; for Stephen had been as incomparably the shortest and ugliest boy in the school as Sally was the tallest and prettiest girl-being, indeed, of that stunted and large-headed appearance, which betokens a dwarf, and is usually accompanied by features as unpleasant in their expression as they are grotesque in their form. But then he was the head boy and being held up by the master as a miracle of reading, writing and ciphering, was a personage of no small importance at Aberleigh; and Sally being with all her cleverness, something of a dunce, owed to Stephen much obligation for assistance in the school business. He arranged, cast up, and set in order on the slate, the few straggling figures which poor Sally called her sum-painted over, and reduced to something like form, the misshapen and disjointed letters in her copy-book-learnt all her lessons himself, and tried most ineffectu-entine's Day. Last spring, a written Valenally to teach them to her-and, finally, covered tine, exceedingly choice in its decorations, had her unconquerable want of memory by the made its appearance at Master North's; rather loudest and boldest prompting ever heard out out of date, it must be owned, since, being enof a theatre. Many a rap of the knuckles closed in a packet, to save postage, and sent have Sally North's blunders cost Stephen by an opportunity, as the country phrase goes, Long, and vainly did the master admonish it had been detained, either by accident or him to hold his tongue. Prompt he would-waggery, till the first of April; but this was although so incorrigibly stupid was his fair mistress, that, even when the words were put into her mouth, she stumbled at repeating them; and Stephen's officious kindness commonly ended in their being punished in company a consummation, for his share of which the boy was gallant enough to rejoice. She was fully sensible of this flattering devotion, and repaid it, as far as lay in her power, by taking him under her protection at play-times, in return for the services which he rendered her in school; and becoming more and more bound to him by a series of mutual good offices, finished by vindicating his ugliness, denying his pedantry, and, when twitted with his dwarfishness, boldly predicting that he would grow. They walked together, talked together, laughed, romped, and quarrelled — in short it was a decided attachment; and when our village Romeo was taken as an apprentice by a cousin of his mother's- -a respectable hosier in Cheapside-it is on record, that his Juliet-the lightest-hearted personage in the neighbourhood-cried for an hour, and moped for a day. All the school stood amazed at her constancy! Stephen, on his side, bore the test of ab none of Stephen's fault; there was the Valentine in the newest London taste, consisting of a raised group of roses and heart's-ease, executed on a kind of paper-cut work, which, on being lifted up, turned into a cage, enclosing a dove;-tender emblem!-with all the rapidity of a change in a pantomime. There the Valentine was;-equally known for Stephen's, by the savour of the verses and the flourish of the signature-the finest specimen of poetry and penmanship, as my friend the schoolmaster triumphantly asserted, that had ever been seen in Aberleigh. "The force of writing could no farther go;" so, this year, our "good apprentice" determined to come himself to be her personal Valentine, and to renew if not complete their early engagement. On this determination being announced to Sally, it occasioned no small perturbation in that fair damsel, equally alarmned at the mental accomplishments and the personal defects of her constant swain. In fact, her feeling towards Stephen had been almost as ideal and unsubstantial as the shadow of a rainbow. She liked to think of him when she had nothing better to do; or to talk of him when she had nothing better to say; or to be puzzled A COUNTRY APOTHECARY. by his verses, or laughed at for his homage; Valentine. I think, with the little clerk, that but as a real substantial Valentine, a present they will be married at Whitsuntide, if not wooer, a future husband, and he so ugly, and before. a poet too-Oh dear! she was frightened to think of it! This impression first broke forth to his sister-who communicated the news of his intended arrival-in a variety of questions, as to Stephen's height, and size, and shape, and complexion; especially as compared with Daniel Tubb's! and was afterwards displayed to that rustic adorer himself; not by words, indeed, but by the encouraging silence and saucy smile with which she listened to his account of the debarkation of his cockney rival, from the top of the B stage. "He's tinier than ever," quoth Daniel, and the smartest dandy that ever was seen. I shall be your Valentine, after all, Sally," pursued her swain; for I could hide him with the shadow of my fist." 66 This was Valentine's-eve. Valentine'smorn saw Sally eyeing the two rivals, through a peep-hole in her little check curtain, as they stood side by side, on the green, watching for the first glimpse of their divinity. Never was seen such a contrast. Stephen, whose original square dwarfishness had fined down into a miniature dandy-sallow, strutting, and all over small-the very Tom Thumb of apprentices! Daniel, taller, bigger, ruddier, and heartier than ever-the actual Goliath of country lads! Never was such a contrast seen. At length Sally, laughing, blushing, and bridling, sallied forth from the cottage-her huge roll basket, but not as usual filled with rolls, carried, not on her head, but in her hands. "I'm your Valentine, Sally! am I not?" exclaimed Daniel Tubb, darting towards her, "you saw me first; I know you saw me first," continued the ardent lover, proceeding to claim the salute usual on such occasions. Pshaw! nonsense! let me alone then, Daniel, can't you?" was the reply of his mistress, advancing to Stephen, who perhaps dazzled by the beauty, perhaps astounded by the height of the fair giantess, remained motionless and speechless on the other side of the road. "Would you like a ride in my basket this fine morning, Mr. Stephen?" said the saucy lass, emptying all his gifts, garters, pincushions, ribbons, and Valentines, from their huge reservoir, and depositing it on the ground at his feet. "Don't be afraid; I'll be bound to carry you as easily as the little Italian boy carries his tray of images. He's not half the weight of the rolls is he, Daniel?" pursued the unmerciful beauty. "For my part, I think he has grown shorter.-Come, do step in!" And, with the word, the triumphant Daniel lifted up the discomfited beau, placed him safely in the basket, and hoisted the burthen on Sally's head to the unspeakable diversion of that saucy maiden, and the complete cure of Master Stephen's love.-No need, after this, to declare which of the two rivals is Sally North's ONE of the most important personages in a small country town is the apothecary. He takes rank next after the rector and the attorney, and before the curate; and could be much less easily dispensed with than either of those worthies, not merely as holding "fate and physic" in his hand, but as the general, and as it were official, associate, adviser, comforter, and friend, of all ranks and all ages, of high and low, rich and poor, sick and well. I am no despiser of dignities; but twenty emperors shall be less intensely missed in their wide dominions than such a man as my friend John Hallett in his own small sphere. The spot which was favoured with the residence of this excellent person, was the small town of Hazelby, in Dorsetshire; a pretty little place, where every thing seems at a standstill. It was originally built in the shape of the letter T; a long broad market-place (still so called, although the market be gone) serving for the perpendicular stem, traversed by a straight, narrow, horizontal street, to answer for the top line. Not one addition has occurred to interrupt this architectural regularity since; some fifty years ago, a rich London tradesman built, at the west end of the horizontal street, a wide-fronted single house, with two low wings, iron palisades before, and a fish-pond opposite, which still goes by the name of New Place, and is balanced, at the east end of the street, by an erection of nearly the same date, a large, square, dingy mansion, enclosed within high walls, inhabited by three maiden sisters, and called, probably by way of nickname, the Nunnery. New Place being on the left of the road, and the Nunnery on the right, the T has now something the air of the Italic capital T, turned up at one end and down on the other. The latest improvements are the bow-window in the market-place, commanding the pavement both ways, which the late brewer, Andrews, threw out in his snug parlour some twenty years back, and where he used to sit smoking, with the sash up, in summer afternoons, enjoying himself, good man; and the great room at the Swan, originally built by the speculative publican, Joseph Allwright, for an assemblyroom. That speculation did not answer. The assembly, in spite of canvassing and patronage, and the active exertions of all the young ladies in the neighbourhood, dwindled away and died at the end of two winters: then it became a club-room for the hunt; but the hunt : quarrelled with Joseph's cookery: then a market-room for the farmers; but the farmers (it was the high-price time) quarrelled with Joseph's wine: then it was converted into the magistrate's room-the bench; but the bench and the market went away together, and there was an end of justicing then Joseph tried the novel attraction (to borrow a theatrical phrase) of a billiard-table; but, alas! that novelty succeeded as ill as if it had been theatrical: there were not customers enough to pay the marker: at last, it has merged finally in that unconscious receptacle of pleasure and pain, a post-office; although Hazelby has so little to do with traffic of any sort-even the traffic of correspondence that a saucy mailcoach will often carry on its small bag, and as often forget to call for the London bag in return. In short, Hazelby is an insignificant place; -my readers will look for it in vain in the map of Dorsetshire; it is omitted, poor dear town!-left out by the map-maker with as little remorse as a dropped letter!-and it is also an old-fashioned place. It has not even a cheap shop for female gear. Every thing in the one store which it boasts, kept by Martha Deane, linen-draper and haberdasher, is dear and good as things were wont to be. You may actually get there thread made of flax, from the gouty, uneven, clumsy, shiny fabric, yelept whited-brown, to the delicate commodity of Lisle, used for darning muslin. I think I was never more astonished than when, on asking, from the mere force of habit, for thread, I was presented, instead of the pretty lattice-wound balls or snowy reels of cotton, with which that demand is usually answered, with a whole drawerful of skeins, peeping from their plue papers-such skeins as in my youth a thrifty maiden would draw into the nicely-stitched compartments of that silken repository, a housewife, or fold into a congeries of graduated thread-papers, "fine by degrees and beautifully less." The very literature of Hazelby is doled out at the pastrycook's, in a little one-windowed shop, kept by Matthew Wise. Tarts occupy one end of the counter, and reviews the other; whilst the shelves are parcelled out between books, and dolls, and gingerbread. It is a question, by which of his trades poor Matthew gains least; he is so shabby, so threadbare, and so starved. Such a town would hardly have known what to do with a highly-informed and educated surgeon, such as one now generally sees in that most liberal profession. My friend, John Hallett, suited it exactly. His predecessor, Mr. Simon Shuter, had been a small, wrinkled, spare old gentleman, with a short cough and a thin voice, who always seemed as if he needed an apothecary himself. He wore generally a full suit of drab, a flaxen wig of the sort called a Bob Jerom, and a very tight muslin stock; a costume which he had adopted in his younger days in imitation of the most eminent physician of the next city, and continued to the time of his death. Perhaps the cough might have been originally an imitation, also, ingrafted on the system by habit. It had a most unsatisfactory sound, and seemed more like a trick than a real effort of nature. His talk was civil, prosy, and fidgety, much addicted to small scandal, and that kind of news which passes under the denomination of tittle-tattle. He was sure to tell one half of the town where the other drank tea, and recollected the blancmangers and jellies on a supper-table, or described a new gown, with as much science and unction as if he had been used to make jellies and wear gowns in his own person. Certain professional peculiarities might have favoured the supposition. His mode of practice was exactly that popularly attributed to old women. He delighted in innocent remedies-manna, magnesia, and camphor julep; never put on a blister in his life; and would sooner, from pure complaisance, let a patient die, than administer an unpalatable prescription. So qualified, to say nothing of his gifts in tea-drinking, casino, and quadrille (whist was too many for him), his popularity could not be questioned. When he expired, all Hazelby mourned. The lamentation was general. The women of every degree (to borrow a phrase from that great phrase-monger, Horace Walpole)" cried quarts;" and the procession to the church-yard- that very church-yard to which he had himself followed so many of his patients-was now attended by all of them that remained alive. It was felt that the successor of Mr. Simon Shutter would have many difficulties to encounter. My friend, John Hallett, "came, and saw, and overcame." John was what is usually called a rough diamond. Imagine a short, clumsy, stout-built figure, almost as broad as it is long, crowned by a bullet-head, covered with shaggy brown hair, sticking out in every direction; the face round and solid, with a complexion originally fair, but dyed one red by exposure to all sorts of weather; open good-humoured eyes of a greenish cast, his admirers called them hazel; a wide mouth, full of large white teeth; a cocked-up nose, and a double chin; bearing altogether a strong resemblance to a print which I once saw hanging up in an alehouse parlour, of "the cele brated divine" (to use the identical words of the legend) "Doctor Martin Luther." The condition of a country apothecary being peculiarly liable to the inclemency of the season, John's dress was generally such as might bid defiance to wind or rain, or snow or hail. If any thing, he wrapt up most in the summer, having a theory that people were never so apt to take cold as in hot weather. He usually wore a bearskin great-coat, a silk handkerchief] over his cravat, top boots on those sturdy pil-tagious cachinnation that ever w was heard. lars his legs, a huge pair of overalls, and a hat, which, from the day in which it first came into his possession to that in which it was thrown aside, never knew the comfort of being freed from its oilskin-never was allowed to display the glossy freshness of its sable youth. Poor dear hat! how its vanity (if hats have vanity) must have suffered! For certain its owner had none, unless a lurking pride in his own bluffness and bluntness may be termed such. He piqued himself on being a plain downright Englishman, and on a voice and address pretty much like his apparel, rough, strong, and warm, and fit for all weathers. A heartier person never lived. Nothing in the shape of fun came amiss to In his profession he was eminently skilful, bold, confident, and successful. The neighbouring physicians liked to come after Mr. But the chief scene of Mr. Hallett's gaiety Hallett; they were sure to find nothing to lay out of doors, in a very beautiful spot, undo. And blunt and abrupt as was his called the Down, a sloping upland, about a general manner, he was kind and gentle in a mile from Hazelby; a side view of which, sick-room; only nervous disorders, the pet with its gardens and orchards, its pretty church diseases of Mr. Simon Shuter, he could not peeping from amongst lime and yew trees, abide. He made short work with them; and the fine piece of water, called Hazelby frightened them away, as one does by children Pond, it commanded. The Down itself was when they have the hiccough; or if the malady an extensive tract of land covered with the were pertinacious and would not go, he fairly finest verdure, backed by a range of hills, and turned off the patient. Once or twice, indeed, surrounded by coppice-woods, large patches on such occasions, the patient got the start, of which were scattered over the turf, like so and turned him off; Mrs. Emery, for instance, many islands on an emerald sea. Nothing the lady's maid at New Place, most delicate could be more beautiful or more impenetrable and mincing of waiting-gentlewomen, mo- than these thickets; they were principally tioned him from her presence; and Miss composed of birch, holly, hawthorn, and Deane, daughter of Martha Deane, haber- maple, woven together by garlands of wooddasher, who, after completing her education bine, interwreathed and intertwisted by bramat a boarding-school, kept a closet full of mil-ble and briar, till even the sheep, although linery in a little den behind her mamma's the bits of their snowy fleece left on the shop, and was by many degrees the finest lady in Hazelby, was so provoked at being told by him that nothing ailed her, that, to prove her weakly condition, she pushed him by main force out of doors. With these exceptions Mr. Hallett was the delight of the whole town, as well as of all the farm-houses within six miles round. He just suited the rich yeomanry, cured their diseases, and partook of their feasts; was constant at christenings, and a man of prime importance at weddings. A country merrymaking was nothing without "the Doctor." He was "the very prince of good fellows;" had a touch of epicurism, which, without causing any distaste of his own homely fare, made dainties acceptable when they fell in his way; was a most absolute carver; prided himself upon a sauce of his own invention, for fish and game-"Hazelby sauce" he called it; and was universally admitted to be the best compounder of a bowl of punch in the country. Besides these rare convivial accomplish ments, his gay and jovial temper rendered him the life of the table. There was no resisting his droll faces, his droll stories, his jokes, his tricks, or his laugh-the most con bushes bore witness to the attempt, could make no way in the leafy mass. Here and there a huge oak or beech rose towering above the rich underwood; and all around, as far as the eye could pierce, the borders of this natural shrubbery were studded with a countless variety of woodland flowers. When the old thorns were in blossom, or when they were succeeded by the fragrant woodbine and the delicate briar-rose, it was like a garden, if it were possible to fancy any garden so peopled with birds.* The only human habitation on this charming tory occurred for several successive years on this * A circumstance of some curiosity in natural hisdown. There was constantly in one of the thickets a blackbird's nest, of which the young were distinguished by a striking peculiarity. The old birds (probably the same pair.) were of the usual sable colour, white as a swan, without a single discoloured feather. but the plumage of their progeny was milk-white, as They were always taken, and sold at high prices to the curious in such freaks of nature. The late bishop of Winchester had a pair of them for a long time in the male was a fine song-bird; but all attempts to the aviary at Farnham Castle; they were hardy, and breed from them failed. They died, "and left the world no copy." spot was the cottage of the shepherd, old ther knick-knacky in his tastes; a great patron Thomas Tolfrey, who, with his grand-daugh- of small inventions, such as the improved neter, Jemima, a light pretty maiden of fourteen, plus-ultra cork-screw, and the latest patent tended the flocks on the Down; and the rustic snuffers. He also trifled with horticulture, carols of this little lass and the tinkling of the dabbled in tulips, was a connoisseur in pinks, sheep-bells were usually the only sounds that and had gained a prize for polyanthuses. The mingled with the sweet songs of the feathered garden was under the especial care of his prettribes. On May-days and holidays, however, ty niece, Miss Margaret, a grateful, warmthe thickets resounded with other notes of hearted girl, who thought she never could do glee than those of the linnet and the wood- enough to please her good uncle, and prove lark. Fairs, revels, May-games, and cricket- her sense of his kindness. He was indeed as matches-all were holden on the Down; and fond of her as if he had been her father, and there would John Hallett sit, in his glory, as kind. universal umpire and referee of cricketer, wrestler, or back-sword player, the happiest and greatest man in the field. Little Jemima never failed to bring her grandfather's armchair, and place it under the old oak for the good doctor; I question whether John would have exchanged his throne for that of the king of England. On these occasions he certainly would have been the better for that convenience, which he piqued himself on not needing-a partner. Generally speaking, he really, as he used to boast, did the business of three men; but when a sickly season and a Maying happened to come together, I cannot help suspecting that the patients had the worst of it. Perhaps, however, a partner might not have suited him. He was sturdy and independent to the verge of a fault, and would not have brooked being called to account, or brought to a reckoning by any man under the sun; still less would he endure the thought of that more important and durable co-partnery-marriage. He was a most determined bachelor; and so afraid of being mistaken for a wooer, or encouraging the reputation of a gay deceiver, that he was as uncivil as his good-nature would permit to every unwedded female from sixteen to sixty, and had nearly fallen into some scrapes on that account with the spinsters of the town, accustomed to the soft silkiness of Mr. Simon Shuter; but they got used to it-it was the man's way; and there was an indirect flattery in his fear of their charms, which the maiden ladies, especially the elder ones, found very mollifying; so he was forgiven. Perhaps there was nothing very extraordinary in his goodness to the gentle and cheerful little girl who kept his walks so trim and his parlour so neat, who always met him with a smile, and who (last and strongest tie to a generous mind,) was wholly dependent on him had no friend on earth but himself. There was nothing very uncommon in that. But John Hallett was kind to every one, even where the sturdy old English prejudices, which he cherished as virtues, might seem most likely to counteract his gentler feelings. One instance of his benevolence and his delicacy shall conclude this sketch. Several years ago an old French emigré came to reside at Hazelby. He lodged at Matthew Wise's, of whose twofold shop for cakes and novels I have before made honourable mention, in the low three-cornered room, with a closet behind it, which Matthew had the impudence to call his first floor. Little was known of him but that he was a thin, pale, foreign-looking gentleman, who shrugged his shoulders in speaking, took a great deal of snuff, and made a remarkably low bow. The few persons with whom he had any communication spoke with amusement of his bad English, and with admiration of his good-humour; and it soon appeared, from a written paper placed in a conspicuous part of Matthew's shop, that he was an Abbé, and that he would do himself the honour of teaching French to any of the nobility or gentry of Hazelby who might think fit to employ him. Pupils dropt in rather slowly. The curate's daughters, and the attorney's son, and Miss Deane the milliner- but she found the lanIn his shop and his household he had no guage difficult, and left off, asserting that M. need either of partner or wife: the one was l'Abbé's snuff made her nervous. At last excellently managed by an old rheumatic jour- poor M. l'Abbé fell ill himself, really ill, danneyman, slow in speech and of vinegar aspect, gerously ill, and Matthew Wise went in all who had been a pedagogue in his youth, and haste to summon Mr. Hallett. Now Mr. Halnow used to limp about with his Livy in his lett had such an aversion to a Frenchman, in pocket, and growl as he compounded the general, as a cat has to a dog; and was wont medicines over the bad latinity of the pre- to erect himself into an attitude of defiance scriptions; the other was equally well con- and wrath at the mere sight of the object of ducted by an equally ancient housekeeper and his antipathy. He hated and despised the a cherry-cheeked niece, the orphan daughter whole nation, abhorred the language, and of his only sister, who kept every thing with- "would as lief," he assured Matthew," have in doors in the bright and shining order in been called in to a toad." He went, howwhich he delighted. John Hallett, notwith- ever, grew interested in the case, which was standing the roughness of his aspect, was ra- difficult and complicated; exerted all his |