and for ever, locked and bolted the door, and sat down to work or to cry in the kitchen. She did not cry long. The next night we again heard the note of the sky-lark louder and more brilliant than ever, echoing across our court, and the lovers, the better friends for their little quarrel, have been as constant as turtle-doves ever since. WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. THE HARD SUMMER. AUGUST 15th.-Cold, cloudy, windy, wet. Here we are, in the midst of the dog-days, clustering merrily round the warm hearth, like so many crickets, instead of chirruping in the green fields like that other merry insect the grasshopper; shivering under the influence of the Jupiter Pluvius of England, the watery St. Swithin; peering at that scarce personage the sun, when he happens to make his appearance, as intently as astronomers look after a comet, or the common people stare at a balloon; exclaiming against the cold weather, just as we used to exclaim against the warm. "What a change from last year!" is the first sentence you hear, go where you may. Every body remarks it, and every body complains of it; and yet in my mind it has its advantages, or at least its compensations, as every thing in nature has, if we would only take the trouble to seek for them. Last year in spite of the love which we are now pleased to profess towards that ardent luminary, not one of the sun's numerous admirers had courage to look him in the face: there was no bearing the world till he had said "Good-night" to it. Then we might stir; then we began to wake and to live. All day long we languished under his influence in a strange dreaminess, too hot to work, too hot to read, too hot to write, too hot even to talk; sitting hour after hour in a green arbour, embowered in leafiness, letting thought and fancy float as they would. Those day-dreams were pretty things in their way; there is no denying that. But then, if one half of the world were to dream through a whole summer, like the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, what would become of the other? The only office requiring the slightest exertion, which I performed in that warm weather, was watering my flowers. Common sympathy called for that labour. The poor things withered, and faded, and pined away; they almost, so to say, panted for drought. Moreover, if I had not watered them myself, I suspect that no one else would; for water last year was nearly as precious hereabout as wine. Our land-springs were dried up; our wells were exhausted; our deep ponds were dwindling into mud; and geese, and ducks, and pigs, and laundresses, used to look with a jealous and suspicious eye on the few and scanty half-buckets of that impure element, which my trusty lacquey was fain to filch for my poor geraniums and campanulas and tuberoses. We were forced to smuggle them in through my faithful adherent's territories, the stable, to avoid lectures within doors; and at last even that resource failed; my garden, my blooming garden, the joy of my eyes, was forced to go waterless like its neighbours, and became shrivelled, scorched, and sunburnt, like them. It really went to my heart to look at it. On the other side of the house matters were still worse. What a dusty world it was when about sunset we became cool enough to creep into it! Flowers in the court looked fit for a hortus siccus; mummies of plants, dried as in an oven; hollyhocks, once pink, turned into Quakers; cloves smelling of dust. Oh dusty world! May herself looked of that complexion; so did Lizzy; so did all the houses, windows, chickens, children, trees, and pigs in the village; so above all did the shoes. No foot could make three plunges into that abyss of pulverised gravel, which had the impudence to call itself a hard road, without being clothed with a coat a quarter of an inch thick. Woe to white gowns! woe to black! Drab was your only wear. Then, when we were out of the street, what a toil it was to mount the hill, climbing with weary steps and slow upon the brown turf by the wayside, slippery, hot, and hard as a rock! And then if we happened to meet a carriage coming along the middle of the road, - the bottomless middle,-what a sandy whirlwind it was! What choking! what suffocation! No state could be more pitiable, except indeed that of the travellers who carried this misery about with them. I shall never forget the plight in which we met the coach one evening in last August, full an hour after its time, steeds and driver, carriage and passengers, all one dust. The outsides and the horses and the coachman, seemed reduced to a torpid quietness, the resignation of despair. They had left off trying to better their condition, and taken refuge in a wise and patient hopelessness, bent to endure in silence the extremity of ill. The six insides, on the contrary, were still fighting against their fate, vainly struggling to ameliorate their hapless destiny. They were visibly grumbling at the weather, scolding the dust, and heating themselves like a furnace, by striving against the heat. How well I remember the fat gentleman without his coat, who was wiping his forehead, heaving up his wig, and certainly uttering that English ejaculation, which, to our national reproach, is the phrase of our language best known on the continent. And that poor boy, red-hot, all in a flame, whose mamma, having divested her own person of all su perfluous apparel, was trying to relieve his sufferings by the removal of his neck-kerchief -an operation which he resisted with all his might. How perfectly I remember him, as well as the pale girl who sate opposite fanning herself with her bonnet into an absolute fever! They vanished after a while in their own dust; but I have them all before my eyes at this moment, a companion-picture to Hogarth's Afternoon, a standing lesson to the grumblers at cold summers. or praise, or the more coarse and common briberies-they are more delicate courtiers; a word, a nod, a smile, or the mere calling of them by their names, is enough to insure their hearts and their services. Half a dozen of them, poor urchins, have run away now to bring us chairs from their several homes. "Thank you, Joe Kirby!-you are always first-yes, that is just the place. I shall see every thing 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 For my part I really like this wet season. It keeps us within, to be sure, rether more than is quite agreeable; but then we are at least awake and alive there, and the world out of doors is so much the pleasanter when we can get abroad. Every thing does well, except those fastidious bipeds, men and women; corn ripens, grass grows, fruit is plentiful; the most completely alert and active. Joe 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 nought. 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 hopvine; those magnificent dusky cloves, breathing of the Spice Islands; those flaunting double dahlias; those splendid scarlet geraniums, and those fierce and warlike flowers the tiger-lilies. Oh how beautiful they are! Besides, the weather clears sometimes-it has cleared this evening; and here are we, after a merry walk up the hill, almost as quick as in the winter, bounding lightly along the bright green turf of the pleasant common, enticed by the gay shouts of a dozen clear young voices, to linger awhile, and see the boys play at cricket. I plead guilty to a strong partiality towards that unpopular class of beings, country boys: I have a large acquaintance amongst them, and I can almost say, that I know good of many and harm of none. In general they are an open, spirited, good-humoured race, with a proneness to embrace the pleasures and eschew the evils of their condition, a capacity for happiness, quite unmatched in man, or woman, or girl. They are patient, too, and bear their fate as scape-goats (for all sins whatsoever are laid, as matters of course, to their door, whether at home or abroad,) with amazing resignation; and, considering the many lies of which they are the objects, they tell wonderfully few in return. The worst that can be said of them is, that they seldom, when grown to man's estate keep the promise of their boyhood; but that is a fault to come-a fault that may not come, and ought not to be anticipated. It is astonishing how sensible they are to notice from their betters, or those whom they think such. I do not speak of money, or gifts, 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 poorer than all, as may be conjectured from the lamentable state of that patched round frock, and the ragged condition of those unpatched shoes, which would encumber, if any thing could, the light feet that wear them. But why should I lament the poverty that never troubles him? Joe is the merriest and happiest creature that ever lived twelve years in this wicked world. Care cannot come near him. He hath a perpetual smile on his round ruddy face, and a laugh in his hazel-eye, that drives the witch away. He works at yonder farm on the top of the hill, where he is in such repute for intelligence and good-humour, that he has the honour of performing all the errands of the house, or helping the maid, and the mistress, and the master, in addition to his own stated office of carter's boy. There he works hard from five till seven, and then he comes here to work still harder under the name of playbatting, bowling, and fielding as if for life, filling the place of four boys; being at a pinch, a whole eleven. The late Mr. Knyvett, the king's organist, who used in his own person to sing twenty parts at once of the hallelujah chorus, so that you would have thought he had a nest of nightingales in his throat, was but a type of Joe Kirby. There is a sort of ubiquity about him; he thinks nothing of being in two places at once, and for pitching a ball William Grey himself is nothing to him. It goes straight to the mark like a bullet. He is king of the cricketers from eight to sixteen, both inclusive, and an excellent ruler he makes. Nevertheless, in the best-ordered states there will be grumblers, and we have an opposition here in the shape of Jem Eusden. Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or Joe's) in his hand. What an ill-conditioned hobgoblin it is! And yet there is something bold and sturdy about him too. I should miss Jem Eusden. of fortune with a tenacity proceeding perhaps from an instinctive consciousness that that loquacious leader talks enough for two. He is the only thing resembling a follower that our demagogue possesses, and is cherished by him accordingly. Jem quarrels for him, scolds for him, pushes for him; and but for Joe Kirby's invincible good humour, and a just discrimination of the innocent from the guilty, the activity of Jem's friendship would get the poor hussar ten drubbings a day. thereabout, lean, small, and short, yet strong and active. His face is of an extraordinary ugliness, colourless, withered, haggard, with a look of extreme age, much increased by hair so light that it might rather pass for white Ah, there is another deserter from the party! than flaxen. He is constantly arrayed in the my friend the little huzzar-I do not know his blue cap and old-fashioned coat, the costume name, and call him after his cap and jacket. of an endowed school to which he belongs; He is a very remarkable person, about the age where he sits still all day, and rushes into the of eight years, the youngest piece of gravity field at night, fresh, untired, and ripe for ac- and dignity I ever encountered; short, and tion, to scold, and brawl, and storm, and blus- square, and upright, and slow, with a fine ter. He hates Joe Kirby, whose immoveable bronzed flat visage, resembling those convertigood-humour, broad smiles, and knowing nods, ble signs the Broad-Face and the Saracen's must certainly be very provoking to so fierce Head, which, happening to be next-door neighand turbulent a spirit; and he has himself bours in the town of B., I never know apart, (being, except by rare accident, no great play- resembling, indeed, any face that is open-eyed er,) the preposterous ambition of wishing to and immoveable, the very sign of a boy! He be manager of the sports. In short, he is a stalks about with his hands in his breeches demagogue in embryo, with every quality pocket, like a piece of machinery; sits leisurenecessary to a splendid success in that voca- ly down when he ought to field, and never tion, a strong voice, a fluent utterance, an in- gets farther in batting than to stop the ball. cessant iteration, and a frontless impudence. His is the only voice never heard in the melée; He is a great" scholar," too, to use the coun-I doubt, indeed, if he have one, which may be try phrase; his "piece," as our village school- partly the reason of a circumstance that I remaster terms a fine sheet of flourishing writing, cord to his honour, his fidelity to Jem Eusden, something between a valentine and a sampler, to whom he has adhered through every change enclosed within a border of little coloured prints his last, I remember, was encircled by an engraved history of Moses, beginning at the finding in the bulrushes, with Pharaoh's daughter, dressed in a rose-coloured gown and blue feathers, his piece is not only the admiration of the school but of the parish, and is sent triumphantly around from house to house at Christmas, to extort halfpence and sixpences from all encouragers of learning -Montem in miniature. The Mosaic history was so successful, that the produce enabled But it is growing late. The sun has set a Jem to purchase a bat and ball, which, besides long time. Only see what a gorgeous colouradding to his natural arrogance (for the little ing has spread itself over those parting masses pedant actually began to mutter against being of clouds in the west,-what a train of rosy eclipsed by a dunce, and went so far as to light! We shall have a fine sunshiny day tochallenge Joe Kirby to a trial in Practice, or morrow,-a blessing not to be undervalued, in the Rule of Three,) gave him, when com- spite of my late vituperation of heat. Shall pared with the general poverty, a most unna- we go home now? And shall we take the tural preponderance in the cricket state. He longest but prettiest road, that by the green had the ways and means in his hands-(for lanes? This way, to the left, round the corner alas! the hard winter had made sad havoc of the common, past Mrs. Welles's cottage, among the bats, and the best ball was a bad and our path lies straight before us. one) he had the ways and means, could snug and comfortable that cottage looks! Its withhold the supplies, and his party was be- little yard all alive with the cow, and the ginning to wax strong, when Joe received a mare, and the colt almost as large as the mare, present of two bats and a ball for the young- and the young foal, and the great yard-dog all sters in general, and himself in particular- so fat! Fenced in with hay-rick, and wheatand Jem's adherents left him on the spot rick, and bean-stack, and backed by the long they ratted, to a man, that very evening. Not- garden, the spacious drying-ground, the fine withstanding this desertion, their forsaken orchard, and that large field quartered into leader has in nothing relaxed from his preten- four different crops. How comfortable this sions, or his ill-humour. He still quarrels and cottage looks, and how well the owners earn brawls as if he had a faction to back him, and their comforts! They are the most prosperous thinks nothing of contending with both sides, pair in the parish-she a laundress with twenty the ins and outs, secure of out-talking the times more work than she can do, unrivalled whole field. He has been squabbling these in flounces and shirt-frills, and such delicacies ten minutes, and is just marching off now with of the craft; he, partly a farmer, partly a his own bat (he never deigned to use one of farmer's man, tilling his own ground, and then How tilling other people's;-affording a proof, even | I only mean to assert that one gentleman does in this declining age, when the circumstances exist, (whom I have the pleasure of knowing of so many worthy members of the community intimately,) who stands pre-eminent and unseem to have "an alacrity in sinking," that it rivalled in the art of talking,-unmatched and is possible to amend them by sheer industry. unapproached by man, woman, or child. Since He, who was born in the workhouse, and bred the decease of my poor friend "the Talking up as a parish boy, has now, by mere manual Lady," who dropped down speechless in the labour, risen to the rank of a land-owner, pays midst of a long story about nine weeks ago, rates and taxes, grumbles at the times, and is and was immediately known to be dead by her I called Master Welles,-the title next to Mister silence, I should be at a loss where to seek a -that by which Shakspeare was called;- competitor to contend with him in a race of what would man have more? His wife, be- words, and I should be still more puzzled to sides being the best laundress in the county, find one that can match him in wit, pleasantry, is a comely woman still. There she stands at or good-humour. the spring, dipping up water for to-morrow,- My friend is usually called Harry L., for, the clear, deep, silent spring, which sleeps so though a man of substance, a lord of land, a peacefully under its high flowery bank, red magistrate, a field officer of militia, nobody with the tall spiral stalks of the foxglove and ever dreamed of calling him Mister or major, their rich pendent bells, blue with the beauti- or by any such derogatory title-he is and will ful forget-me-not, that gem-like blossom, which be all his life plain Harry, the name of unilooks like a living jewel of turquoise and topaz. versal good-will. He is indeed the pleasantest It is almost too late to see its beauty; and fellow that lives. His talk (one can hardly here is the pleasant shady lane, where the high call it conversation, as that would seem to imelms will shut out the little twilight that re-ply another interlocutor, something like recimains. Ah, but we shall have the fairies' lamps to guide us, the stars of the earth, the glow-worms! Here they are, three almost together. Do you not see them? One seems tremulous, vibrating, as if on the extremity of a leaf of grass; the others are deeper in the hedge, in some green cell on which their light falls with an emerald lustre. I hope my friends the cricketers will not come this way home. I would not have the pretty creatures removed for more than I care to say, and in this matter I would hardly trust Joe Kirbyboys 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 TALKING GENTLEMAN. procity) is an incessant flow of good things, like Congreve's comedies without a replying speaker, or Joe Miller laid into one; and its perpetual stream is not lost and dispersed by diffusion, but runs in one constant channel, playing and sparkling like a fountain, the delight and ornament of our good town of B. Harry L. is a perfect example of provincial reputation, of local fame. There is not an urchin in the town that has not heard of him, nor an old woman that does not chuckle by anticipation at his approach. The citizens of B. are as proud of him as the citizens of Antwerp were of the Chapeau de Paille, and they have the advantage of the luckless Flemings in the certainty that their boast is not to be purchased. Harry, like the Flemish Beauty, is native to the spot; for he was born at B., educated at B., married at B.,-though, as his beautiful wife brought him a good estate in a distant part of the country, there seemed at that epoch of his history some danger of his being lost to our ancient borough; but he is a social and gregarious animal; so he leaves his pretty place in Devonshire to take care of THE lords of the creation, who are generally itself, and lives here in the midst of a hive. (to do them justice) tenacious enough of their His tastes are not at all rural. He is no distinctive and peculiar faculties and powers, sportsman, no farmer, no lover of strong exhave yet by common consent made over to the ercise. When at B., his walks are quite refemales the single gift of loquacity. Every gular; from his own house, on one side of the man thinks and says that every woman talks town, to a gossip-shop called "literary" on more than he: it is the creed of the whole the other, where he talks and reads newspasex,-the debates and law reports notwith- pers, and others read newspapers and listen: standing. And every masculine eye that has thence he proceeds to another house of news, scanned my title has already, I doubt not, similar in kind, though differing in name, in looked to the errata, suspecting a mistake in an opposite quarter, where he and his hearers the gender; but it is their misconception, not undergo the same process, and then he returns my mistake. I do not (Heaven forbid !) in-home, forming a pretty exact triangle of about tend to impugn or abrogate our female privilege; I do not dispute that we do excel, generally speaking, in the use of the tongue; H half a mile. This is his daily exercise, or rather his daily walk; of exercise he takes abundance, not only in talking, (though that is nearly as good to open the chest as the man of forty, or thereabout; rather thin and In his occupations and pleasures Harry is pretty much like other provincial gentlemen; loves a rubber, and jests all through, at aces, kings, queens, and knaves, bad cards, and good, at winning and losing, scolding and praise ;-loves a play, at which he out-talks the actors whilst on the stage,—to say nothing of the advantage he has over them in the intervals between the acts;-loves music, as a good accompaniment to his grand solo;—loves a contested election above all. That is his real element,-that din and uproar, and riot and confusion! To ride that whirlwind and direct that storm is his triumph of triumphs! He would make a great sensation in parlia ment himself, and a pleasant one. (By the way, he was once in danger of being turned out of the gallery for setting all around him in a roar.) Think what a fine thing it would be for the members to have mirth introduced into the body of the house! to be sure of an honest, hearty, good-humoured laugh during the session! Besides, Harry is an admirable speaker, in every sense of the word. Jesting is indeed his forte, because he wills it so to be; and therefore, because he chooses to play jigs and country dances upon a noble organ, even some of his stanchest admirers think he can play nothing else. There is no quality of which men so much grudge the reputation as versatility of talent. Because he is so humorous, they will hardly allow him to be eloquent; and, because he is so very witty, find it difficult to account him wise. But let him go where he has not that mischievous fame, or let him bridle his jests and rein in his humour only for one short hour, and he will pass for a most reverend orator,-logical, pathetic, and vigorous above all. But how can I wish him to cease jesting even for an hour? Who would exchange the genial fame of good-humoured wit for the stern reputation of wisdom? Who would choose to be Socrates, if with a |