across the lea, past the workhouse, along by | sinks softly away, like some tiny bay, and the great pond, till we slide into the deep nar- the water flows between, so clear, so wide, so row lane, whose hedges seem to meet over shallow, that Lizzy, longing for adventure, is the water, and win our way to the little farm- sure she could cross unwetted; now dashing house at the end. "Through the farm-yard, through two sand-banks, a torrent deep and Lizzy; over the gate; never mind the cows; narrow, which May clears at a bound; now they are quiet enough.""I don't mind 'em," sleeping half-hidden beneath the alders and said Miss Lizzy, boldly and truly, and with a hawthorns and wild roses, with which the proud affronted air, displeased at being thought banks are so profusely and variously fringed, to mind any thing, and showing by her atti- whilst flags,* lilies, and other aquatic plants, tude and manner some design of proving her almost cover the surface of the stream. In courage by an attack on the largest of the good truth it is a beautiful brook, and one that herd, in the shape of a pull by the tail. "I Walton himself might have sitten by and don't mind 'em.""I know you don't, Lizzy; loved, for trout are there; we see them as they but let them alone, and don't chase the turkey- dart up the stream, and hear and start at the cock. Come to me, my dear!" and, for a sudden plunge when they spring to the surwonder, Lizzy came. face for the summer flies. Izaac Walton would have loved our brook and our quiet meadows; they breathe the very spirit of his own peacefulness, a soothing quietude that sinks into the soul. There is no path through them, not one; we might wander a whole spring day, and not see a trace of human habitation. They belong to a number of small proprietors, who allow each other access through their respective grounds, from pure kindness and neighbourly feeling, a privilege never abused; and the fields on the other side of the water are reached by a rough plank, or a tree thrown across, or some such homely bridge. We ourselves possess one of the most beautiful; so that the strange pleasure of property, that instinct which makes Lizzy delight in her broken doll, and May in the bare bone which she has pilfered from the kennel of her recreant admirer of Newfoundland, is added to the other charms of this enchanting scenery; a strange pleasure it is, when one so poor as I can feel it! Perhaps it is felt most by the poor, with the rich it may be less intense-too much diffused and spread out, becoming thin by expansion, like leafgold; 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 In the mean time my other pet, Mayflower, had also gotten into a scrape. She had driven about a huge unwieldy sow, till the animal's grunting had disturbed the repose of a still more enormous Newfoundland dog, the guardian of the yard. Out he sallied growling from the depth of his kennel, erecting his tail, and shaking his long chain. May's attention was instantly diverted from the sow to this new playmate, friend or foe, she cared not which: and he of the kennel, seeing his charge unhurt and out of danger, was at leisure to observe the charms of his fair enemy, as she frolicked round him, always beyond the reach of his chain, yet always with the natural instinctive coquetry of her sex, alluring him to the pursuit which she knew to be vain. I never saw a prettier flirtation. At last the noble animal, wearied out, retired to the inmost recesses of his habitation, and would not even approach her when she stood right before the entrance. "You are properly served, May. Come along, Lizzy. Across this wheatfield, and now over the gate. Stop! let me lift you down. No jumping, no breaking of necks, Lizzy!" And here we are in the meadows, and out of the world. Robinson Crusoe, in his lonely island, had scarcely a more complete, or a more beautiful solitude. *Walking along these meadows one bright sunny afternoon, a year or two back, and rather later in the season, I had an opportunity of observing a curious circumstance in natural history. Standing close to the edge of the stream, I remarked a singular appearance on a large tuft of flags. It looked like bunches of flowers, the leaves of which seemed dark, yet These meadows consist of a double row of small enclosures of rich grass-land, a mile or two in length, sloping down from high arable grounds on either side, to a little nameless brook that winds between them, with a course which in its infinite variety, clearness, and rapidity, seems to emulate the bold rivers of the north, of whom, far more than of our lazy southern streams, our rivulet presents a miniature likeness. Never was water more ex-transparent, intermingled with brilliant tubes of bright quisitely tricksy :-now darting over the bright pebbles, sparkling and flashing in the light with a bubbling music, as sweet and wild as the song of the woodlark; now stretching quietly along, giving back the rich tufts of the golden marsh-marygolds 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 blue or shining green. On examining this pheno menon more closely, it turned out to be several clusters of dragon-flies, just emerged from their deformed crysalis state, and still torpid and motionless from the wetness of their filmy wings. Half an hour later we returned to the spot, and they were gone. We had seen them at the very moment when beauty was complete, and animation dormant. I have since found nearly a similar account of this curious process in Mr. Bingley's very entertaining work, called “Animal Biography." I must always have loved these meadows, so | fresh, and cool, and delicious to the eye and to the tread, full of cowslips, and of all vernal flowers: Shakspeare's Song of Spring bursts irrepressibly from our lips as we step on them: "When daisies pied, and violets blue, Do paint the meadows with delight, "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" cried Lizzy, breaking in with her clear childish voice; and immediately, as if at her call, the real bird, from a neighbouring tree (for these meadows are dotted with timber like a park), began to echo my lovely little girl, "cuckoo! cuckoo!" I have a prejudice very unpastoral and unpoetical (but I cannot help it, I have many such), against this "harbinger of spring." His note is so monotonous, so melancholy; and then the boys mimic him; one hears "cuckoo! cuckoo" in dirty streets, amongst smoky houses, and the bird is hated for faults not his own. But prejudices of taste, likings and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by reason; so, to escape the serenade from the tree, which promised to be of considerable duration, (when once that eternal song begins, on it goes ticking like a clock)-to escape that noise I determined to excite another, and challenged Lizzy to a cowslip-gathering; a trial of skill and speed, to see which should soonest fill her basket. My stratagem succeeded completely. What scrambling, what shouting, what glee from Lizzy! twenty cuckoos might have sung unheard whilst she was pulling her own flowers, and stealing mine, and laughing, screaming, and talking through all. At last the baskets were filled, and Lizzy declared victor: and down we sate, on the brink of the stream, under a spreading hawthorn, just disclosing its own pearly buds, and surrounded with the rich and enamelled flowers of the wild hyacinth, blue and white, to make our cowslip-ball. Every one knows the process; to nip off the tuft of flowerets just below the top of the stalk, and hang each cluster nicely balanced across a riband, till you have a long string like a garland; then to press them closely together, and tie them tightly up. We went on very prosperously, considering, as people say of a young lady's drawing, or a Frenchman's English, or a woman's tragedy, or of the poor little dwarf who works without fingers, or the ingenious sailor who writes with his toes, or generally of any performance which is accomplished by means seemingly inadequate to its production. To be sure, we met with a few accidents. First, Lizzy spoiled nearly all her cowslips by snapping them off too short; so there was a fresh gathering; in the next place, May overset my full basket, and sent the blossoms floating, like so many fairy favours, down the brook; then when we were going on pretty steadily, just as we had made a superb wreath, and were thinking of tying it together, Lizzy, who held the riband, caught a glimpse of a gorgeous butterfly, all brown and red and purple, and skipping off to pursue the new object, let go her hold; so all our treasures were abroad again. At last, however, by dint of taking a branch of alder as a substitute for Lizzy, and hanging the basket in a pollardash, out of sight of May, the cowslip-ball was finished. What a concentration of fragrance and beauty it was! golden and sweet to satiety! rich to sight, and touch, and smell! Lizzy was enchanted, and ran off with her prize, hiding amongst the trees in the very coyness of ecstasy, as if any human eye, even mine, would be a restraint on her innocent raptures. In the mean while I sate listening, not to my enemy the cuckoo, but to a whole concert of nightingales, scarcely interrupted by any meaner bird, answering and vying with each other in those short delicious strains which are to the ear as roses to the eye; those snatches of lovely sound which come across us as airs from heaven. Pleasant thoughts, delightful associations, awoke as I listened; and almost unconsciously I repeated to myself the beautiful story of the Lutist and the Nightingale, from Ford's Lover's Melancholy. -Here it is. Is there in English poetry any thing finer? Which poets of an elder time have feign'd To Thessaly I came, and living private, That art and nature ever were at strife in. Nature's best-skill'd musician, undertakes The challenge; and for every several strain down. He could not run divisions with more art Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute, To weep a funeral elegy of tears. He look'd upon the trophies of his art, had the misfortune to lose a shoe in the mud, which we left the boy to look after. Here we are at home-dripping; but glowing and laughing, and bearing our calamity most manfully. May, a dog of excellent sense, went instantly to bed in the stable, and is at this moment over head and ears in straw; Lizzy is gone to bed too, coaxed into that wise measure by a promise of tea and toast, and of not going home till to-morrow, and the story of Little Red Riding-Hood; and I am Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes; then sigh'd and enjoying the luxury of dry clothing by a good cried, Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it. Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, When I had finished the recitation of this exquisite passage, the sky, which had been all the afternoon dull and heavy, began to look more and more threatening; darker clouds, like wreaths of black smoke, flew across the dead leaden tint; a cooler, damper air blew over the meadows, and a few large heavy drops plashed in the water. "We shall have a storm. Lizzy! May! where are ye? Quick, quick, my Lizzy! run, run! faster faster!" And off we ran; Lizzy not at all displeased at the thoughts of a wetting, to which indeed she is almost as familiar as a duck; May, on the other hand, peering up at the weather, and shaking her pretty ears with manifest dismay. Of all animals, next to a cat, a greyhound dreads rain. She might have escaped it; her light feet would have borne her home long before the shower; but May is too faithful for that, too true a comrade, understands too well the laws of good fellowship; so she waited for us. She did, to be sure, gallop on before, and then stop and look back, and beckon, as it were, with some scorn in her black eyes at the slowness of our progress. We in the mean while got on as fast as we could, encouraging and reproaching each other. 66 Faster, my Lizzy! Oh what a bad runner!" -"Faster, faster! Oh what a bad runner," echoed my saucebox. "You are so fat, Lizzy, you make no way!"-"Ah! who else is fat?" retorted the darling. Certainly her mother is right; I do spoil that child. fire. Really getting wet through now and then is no bad thing, finery apart; for one should not like spoiling a new pelisse or a handsome plume; but when there is nothing in question but a white gown and a straw bonnet, as was the case to-day, it is rather pleasant than not. The little chill refreshes, and our enjoyment of the subsequent warmth and dryness is positive and absolute. Besides," the stimulus and exertion do good to the mind, as well as body! How melancholy I was all the morning! how cheerful I am now! Nothing like a shower-bath-a real shower-bath, such as Lizzy and May and I have undergone, to cure low spirits. Try it, my dear readers, if ever ye be nervous-I will answer for its success. A COUNTRY CRICKET-MATCH. I DOUBT if there be any scene in the world more animating or delightful than a cricketmatch:-I do not mean a set match at Lord's Ground for money, hard money, between a certain number of gentlemen and players, as they are called-people who make a trade of that noble sport, and degrade it into an affair of bettings, and hedgings, and cheatings, it may be, like boxing or horse-racing; nor do I mean a pretty fête in a gentleman's park, where one club of cricketing dandies encounter another such club, and where they show off in graceful costume to a gay marquée of admiring belles, who condescend so to purchase admiration, and while away a long summer morning in partaking cold collations, conversing occasionally, and seeming to understand the game-the whole being conducted acBy this time we were thoroughly soaked, cording to ball-room etiquette, so as to be exall three. It was a pelting shower, that ceedingly elegant and exceedingly dull. No! drove through our thin summer clothing and the cricket that I mean is a real solid oldpoor May's short glossy coat in a moment. fashioned match between neighbouring parishAnd then, when we were wet to the skin, the es, where each attacks the other for honour sun came out, actually the sun, as if to laugh and a supper, glory and half-a-crown a man. at our plight; and then, more provoking still, If there be any gentlemen amongst them, it is when the sun was shining, and the shower well-if not, it is so much the better. Your over, came a maid and a boy to look after us, gentleman cricketer is in general rather an loaded with cloaks and umbrellas enough to anomalous character. Elderly gentlemen are fence us against a whole day's rain. Never obviously good for nothing; and young beaux mind! on we go, faster and faster; Lizzy are, for the most part, hampered and tramobliged to be most ignobly carried, having melled by dress and habit; the stiff cravat, the pinched-in waist, the dandy-walk-oh haps, that no great good resulted from the subthey will never do for cricket! Now, our stitution of public houses for out-of door dicountry lads, accustomed to the flail or the versions, relaxed. In short the practice recomhammer (your blacksmiths are capital hitters,) menced, and the hill was again alive with men have the free use of their arms; they know and boys, and innocent merriment; but farther how to move their shoulders; and they can than the riband matches amongst ourselves move their feet too-they can run; then they nobody dreamed of going, till this challenge are so much better made, so much more athle--we were modest, and doubted our own tic, and yet so much lissomer-to use a strength. The B. people, on the other hand, Hampshire phrase, which deserves at least to must have been braggers born, a whole parish be good English. Here and there, indeed, of gasconaders. Never was such boasting! one meets with an old Etonian, who retains such crowing! such ostentatious display of his boyish love for that game which formed practice! such mutual compliments from man so considerable a branch of his education; to man-bowler to batter, batter to bowler! some even preserve their boyish proficiency, It was a wonder they did not challenge all but in general it wears away like the Greek, England. It must be confessed that we were quite as certainly, and almost as fast; a few a little astounded; yet we firmly resolved not years of Oxford, or Cambridge, or the con- to decline the combat; and one of the most tinent, are sufficient to annihilate both the spirited of the new growth, William Grey by power and the inclination. No! a village name, took up the glove in a style of manly match is the thing,-where our highest officer courtesy, that would have done honour to a -our conductor (to borrow a musical term) is knight in the days of chivalry." We were but a little farmer's second son; where a day- not professed players," he said; "being little labourer is our bowler, and a blacksmith our better than school-boys, and scarcely older: long-stop; where the spectators consist of the but, since they had done us the honour to retired cricketers, the veterans of the green, challenge us, we would try our strength. It the careful mothers, the girls, and all the boys would be no discredit to be beaten by such a of two parishes, together with a few amateurs, field." little above them in rank, and not at all in pretension; where laughing and shouting, and the very ecstasy of merriment and good humour, prevail: such a match, in short, as I attended yesterday, at the expense of getting twice wet through, and as I would attend tomorrow, at the certainty of having that ducking doubled. Having accepted the wager of battle, our champion began forthwith to collect his forces. William Grey is himself one of the finest youths that one shall see,-tall, active, slender, and yet strong, with a piercing eye full of sagacity, and a smile full of good humour,— a farmer's son by station, and used to hard work as farmers' sons are now, liked by every body, and admitted to be an excellent cricketer. He immediately set forth to muster his men, Here For the last three weeks our village has been in a state of great excitement, occasioned by a challenge from our north-western neigh-remembering with great complacency that bours, the men of B., to contend with us at cricket. Now we have not been much in the habit of playing matches. Three or four years ago, indeed, we encountered the men of S., our neighbours south-by-east, with a sort of doubtful success, beating them on our own ground, whilst they in the second match returned the compliment on theirs. This discouraged us. Then an unnatural coalition between a highchurch curate and an evangelical gentlemanfarmer drove our lads from the Sunday-evening practice, which, as it did not begin before both services were concluded, and as it tended to keep the young men from the ale-house, our magistrates had winked at, if not encouraged. The sport therefore had languished until the present season, when under another change of circumstances the spirit began to revive. Half a dozen fine active lads, of influence amongst their comrades, grew into men and yearned for cricket: an enterprising publican gave a set of ribands: his rival, mine host of the Rose, an out-doer by profession, gave two; and the clergyman and his lay-ally, both well-disposed and good-natured men, gratified by the submission to their authority, and finding, per Samuel Long, a bowler comme il y en a peu, beau ideal of the two characters. Happy were high! We were all afraid that, in spite of his name, his strength would never hold out. "Wait till next year, John," quoth William Grey, with all the dignified seniority of twenty speaking to eighteen. "Coper's a year younger," said John. "Coper's a foot shorter," replied William: so John retired; and the eleventh man remained unchosen, almost to the eleventh hour. The eve of the match arrived, and the post was still vacant, when a little boy of fifteen, David Willis, brother to Harry, admitted by accident to the last practice, saw eight of them out, and was voted in by acclamation. That Sunday evening's practice (for Monday was the important day) was a period of great anxiety, and, to say the truth, of great pleasure. There is something strangely delightful in the innocent spirit of party. To be one of a numerous body, to be authorized to say we, to have a rightful interest in triumph or defeat, is gratifying at once to social feeling and to personal pride. There was not a ten-year old urchin, or a septuagenary woman in the parish, who did not feel an additional importance, a -"reflected consequence, in speaking of "our side." An election interests in the same way; but that feeling is less pure. Money is there, and hatred, and politics, and lies. Oh, to be a voter or a voter's wife, comes nothing near the genuine and hearty sympathy of belonging to a parish, breathing the same air, looking on the same trees, listening to the same nightingales! Talk of a patriotic elector!-Give me a parochial patriot, a man who loves his parish! Even we, the female partisans, may partake the common ardour. I am sure I did. I never, though tolerably eager and enthusiastic at all times, remember being in a more delicious state of excitation than on the eve of that battle. Our hopes waxed stronger and stronger. Those of our players, who were present, were excellent. William Grey got forty notches off his own bat; and that brilliant hitter Tom Coper gained eight from two successive balls. As the evening advanced, too, we had encouragement of another sort. A spy, who had been despatched to reconnoitre the enemy's quarters, returned from their practising ground, with a most consolatory report. "Really," said Charles Grover, our intelligencer-a fine old steady judge, one who had played well in his day-they are no better than so many old women. Any five of ours would beat their eleven." This sent us to bed in high spirits. Morning dawned less favourably. The sky promised a series of deluging showers, and kept its word, as English skies are wont to do on such occasions; and a lamentable message arrived at the head-quarters from our trusty comrade Joel Brent. His master, a great farmer, had begun the hay-harvest that very morning, and Joel, being as eminent in one field as in another, could not be spared. Imagine Joel's plight! the most ardent of all our eleven! a We had now ten of our eleven, but the choice of the last occasioned some demur. Three young Martins, rich farmers of the neighbourhood, successively presented themselves, and were all rejected by our independent and impartial general for want of merit-cricketal merit. Not good enough," was his pithy answer. Then our worthy neighbour, the halfpay lieutenant, offered his services-he, too, though with some hesitation and modesty, was refused-" not quite young enough," was his sentence. John Strong, the exceeding long son of our dwarfish mason, was the next candidate, a nice youth-every body likes John Strong, and a willing, but so tall and so limp, bent in the middle-a thread-paper, six feet |
