who can interfere with our attachment. More | into fine stout lads, tended the cows and carI must not, cannot tell."

"Must not! cannot! say will not!" rejoined Robert, in a voice of deep and concentrated anger. Say will not, Susan! Once again, and for the last time, I ask you this plain question, From whom did you receive that gewgaw? Answer! or may my right hand be struck off before I place the wedding-ring on your finger!"

"Oh, dearest Robin! grant me but a few short hours. Believe my word, dear Robert. Confide in my affection, in my faith!" exclaimed the poor girl, as her lover turned furiously away;" or ask my grandmother," added she; "or inquire of Willy; they are bound by no promise," continued she, not regarding in her anxiety how much she was infringing her own. But if she did break her word, it was to little purpose; the jealous lover fled from the garden, unhearing or unheeding; and although no threat of enlisting had been spoken, no farewell had been breathed, she remained persuaded that he had taken his measures, and with something very like a presentiment that her brother's hasty plan would, as deception, however well intended, often does, lead to evil rather than to good. And so it proved.

ried the milk through the streets of Belford' Regis; exhibiting no more dangerous warlike propensities than an inordinate ambition on the part of Willy to possess a gun for the purpose of shooting sparrows. Nothing had been heard of Robert and James Wharton, now serjeantmajor of his regiment, remained at a distance, sharing the perils and the victories of the British army. Still, however, Dame Wharton, all peaceful as were her inclinations, had the ill luck to find the destinies of those she loved unexpectedly influenced by the warlike spirit of the times. Poor Susan, restless and unhappy at home, had entered into the service of her noble landlord's daughter, as her own woman; and during the short peace which preceded Napoleon's return from Elba, the lady Anne had been wooed and won by one of the gallant staff which surrounded the great Duke; and, too much attached to her husband to remain at a distance from the field of action, the young bride and her favourite waiting-maid were actually waiting in Brussels during the crowning victory of Waterloo.

"You are a soldier's sister, Susan," said, the lady Anne to her attendant, with her usual sweet grace, a few days after the great battle; "have you any objection to go with me this morning to the military hospital? A private belonging to my husband's division threw him

Before noon on the next day James Wharton learnt that Robert Owen had enlisted the night before, not with his party, but with one belonging to another regiment stationed in Belford for the occasion of the fair; that, immediately upon ascertaining that Susan still re-self between him and a French cuirassier who fused to answer his question, he repaired to was about to cut him down with his sabre, and his Serjeant Kite to announce his continued received the blow destined for Sir Charles. desire to enter the service; that as soon as ad- Of course every care has been taken of him, mittance could be obtained he had been exam- and he is likely to recover, poor fellow, thank ined and attested before the mayor and other heaven! but I wish to carry him a few commagistrates; and that he and the recruiting forts, and to see with my own eyes that he is party were by that time some miles on their kindly attended, and thank him with my own way to the dépôt of the regiment. It was in lips for preserving a life dearer than my own. the very heat of the peninsular war; men were Charles has sent to the surgeon to be in waitscarce, especially men so tall and finely forming: so order the carriage, and we will set ed, so spirited and so active as poor forth." Robert. It was impossible to procure his release, and James and his sister were left to bewail the ill consequences of his unlucky experiment, and Dame Wharton to lament, again and again, the evil destiny which led her descendants, and those connected with them, to go, as she phrased it, a sogering. The only comfort she derived upon the occasion (next perhaps to that general scolding of the guilty and the innocent, the efficacy of which as a consolation under affliction is well known to most ancient dames well to do in the world, who wear spectacles, knit stockings, and love their own way), her prime comfort consisted in cutting Ned's drum to pieces, to the great improveInent of the tranquillity of the rustic homestead, and in throwing Willy's musket into the fire.

Laden with comforts and restoratives, mistress and maid proceeded to the hospital, neither of them perhaps quite prepared for the inevitable horrors of the scene. Crowds of soldiers, for the most part severely wounded, filled the apartment into which they were ushered. Pain and Death seemed busy around them. Sufferings, only the more affecting for the bravery with which they were borne, spoke in every countenance. Young, timid, and softlynurtured, the lady Anne, overcome by such a realisation of the miseries of war as her imag ination, ever so close to the scene, had hardly pictured, delivered to the friendly surgeon a slip of paper upon which the name of her husband's preserver was written. He led the way to a bed near a window.

"Poor fellow! his wars are over! Nay, nay, your Ladyship must not misunderstand Years passed away. The poor boys, grown me. His life is in no danger; but he has

been compelled to submit to amputation: and
as his friends are said to be well off, why the
empty sleeve, in his case, will be only-"
His speech was here checked by a sudden
exclamation, almost a shriek, from his patient.
"Susan! Susan Wharton! my Susan!"
"Robin! dear Robin!"

Lady Anne knew the story, and witnessed the recognition with the sympathy of a young unpractised heart. She too had loved a soldier; and the poor sufferer now before her had received his hurt in that dear soldier's defence. Tears contended with smiles as she gazed upon the couple, already reunited, for Susan was hanging over the couch, and her hand was locked in that of Robert. He looked at her wedding-finger; the ring was gone.

"Robin! dear Robin!" Her voice failed

her.

ous buildings which with all conceivable irregularity surrounded the spacious farm-yard, glittering with the clean crisp covering of straw with which it was very literally littered, and giving due token of their presence by bleatings of lambs seeking their mothers and ewes in pursuit of their lambs, by barking of dogs and shouting of men and boys, were the fine flocks of Farmer Holden returning from their distant pastures to the fold in a rich meadow near the homestead; horses mounted by young carterboys sitting loungingly upon their naked backs, and riding them to and from the village pond with an indescribable air of lazy pride; whilst cows, driven by urchins on foot somewhat brisker, but every whit as dirty, stumbled amongst the sheep and jostled the horses in their haste to reach the calves, who were lowing in their pens eager for the moment that should at once appease their own "pleasant enemy Hunger," and relieve the "mothers of the herd" of their milky burthen.

"I know what you would say. Susan!" replied poor Robert. "It was your brother James. We net in Spain, and he told me the whole truth. Do you remember my wick- Mingled with these larger comers and goers, ed vow? I am a poor maimed object now, biped and quadruped, together with occasional Susan: I have no right hand to put the wed-passers-by, as the thresher or seedsman flung ding-ring upon that dear finger-"

"But you can put the ring on with the left, dear Robin! You can put it on with the left!" said Susan, smiling through her tears and never, in spite of pain, and wounds, and danger, and suffering, throbbed two happier hearts than those of the reconciled lovers, in the crowded wards of the Brussels hospital.

THE RUSTIC TOILET.

"To hold the plough for her sweet love."

SHAKSPEARE.

himself heavily over the threshold of the barn, or the ploughman stalked from the stable to the hay-rick, were innumerable lesser denizens of this well peopled agricultural demesne. Pigs of all ages and all sizes lay wallowing about the yard; and poultry of every denomination, from geese and turkeys to bantams and pigeons, cackled at the barn doors, dabbled in the ponds, fluttered discontented in the coops, or perched in happy freedom on the roofs of the different buildings; whilst one or two small and pretty children, one with a kitten in its hand, leaning eagerly over the low hatchgate which extended from side to side of the deep old porch, as if longing to escape from this their peculiar coop, added to the general agreeableness of the picture. Sweetbriar in its tender green and its fresh fragrance grew A PLEASANT and a stirring scene was the barn- on one side of that old dark porch, and an earyard of Farmer Holden of Hilton, one of the ly honeysuckle, already putting forth its buds, principal tenants of our friend Colonel Lisle flourished on the other. July-stocks, wallof that ilk (if it be permitted to a Southron to flowers, and polyanthuses sent their sweet borrow that expressive phrase,) on one of the breath through the lattice windows, divided pleasantest and sunniest evenings of this last by rich stone mullions; a large cherry-tree most sunny month of April, when, as if to over-waved its snowy blossoms, scattering light at set all the calculations of all the almanac- one end of the house, backed by a rich rosymakers from Mr. Murphy downward, and in tinted almond-scented orchard, whilst in a direct defiance of those safer general prognos- nook between a dark fagot-pile, and a huge ties derived from old experience, there has not open cart-house, the sun glanced upwards on fallen in this fair county of Berks, from the an old elder tree, turning the trunk into gold, first to the thirtieth, one single drop of rain. and the wide spreading branches drooping A bright and a lively scene did the barn-yard with the weight of the redundant foliage and of Hilton Great Farm exhibit on that bright the swelling flower-buds into pendent emeApril evening. Seen between the large wheat- ralds; the clouds were white and fleecy, the sky ricks and bean-stacks and hay-ricks, the barns of the brightest and purest blue, and the woody and stables, the cart-houses, hen-houses, and uplands which formed the framework of the pig-sties, which, together with the old-fash- scenery full of hedge-row timber just putting ioned rambling dwelling house, large enough forth its youngest and most delicate"greenth." to form two or three fine cottages ornées in A gay and a pretty picture was that crowded these degenerate days; seen between the vari-farm-yard, and yet the two principal figures

"You won't try for a prize at the ploughing-" match, Maurice? You really won't try? really and indeed you won't?" rejoined the

stick down a gosling's throat, and following the dose by a drop or two of water to clear the passage for another morsel. Do try, Maurice!" continued she in a tone of voice sweet and round and youthful,-a spoken smile. "Do try!"

still remain undescribed. Seated upon a low | women that ever graced blue stockings. “You wooden stool, engaged in the operation of ad- won't go with me to the Maying?" ministering certain small pellets of dough to some three-score of callow, gaping, struggling goslings-(in the pure Doric of Berkshire this operation is called "pilling the gulls,")-damsel, poking one of her pellets with a little was a young woman of middle height, whose person, sufficiently well formed but somewhat large-boned and muscular, betokened such a union of activity and strength as might probably be more common in the weaker sex if the bountiful intentions of Nature were duly seconded by education and circumstance-if girls took more exercise and passed more time in the open air. Her face could hardly be called pretty, far less beautiful; and yet the bright laughing eyes, the red lips just enough divided to show the pearly teeth, and a dimple at one corner of the mouth, the clear healthy sunburnt complexion, and an expression compounded of frankness, sweetness and gaiety, there was more of charm than is often to be found in the most regular beauty. And so in good truth thought her companion.

"When I know,” cried Maurice, still twist- | ing the unlucky bit of willow, “that you have got leave to go out that very day! Of course' to the Maying! and not to go with me!" And Maurice gave the bit of willow which he had twisted round his finger such a tug with his ' other hand as had nearly cut that useful member to the bone. "Got leave to go, and won't go with me!"

"When you won't try at the plough—”

"Hang the ploughing-match!" ejaculated Maurice, shaking his discomfited finger; "Hang the ploughing-match!"

"When you won't try for a prize," continued Phoebe, quietly taking another gosling upon her lap, "you who know that you can plough as straight a furrow as old Giles Dowling himself!"

66

I

can hinder you, now that you have got leave?¦ Come, and I'll drive you in my own chaisecart with my new chestnut horse."

She, from her occupation and her dress, her dark cotton gown, her double muslin handkerchief, her simple cap, as well as the sleeves turned up above the elbows, and the coloured apron tied over her white one, was evidently a farm-house serving-maiden just tidied up after going through the most laborious of her Hang Giles Dowling, Phœbe! my father many offices, and finishing her day's work by was a farmer, and though, to please him, and supplying the manifold wants of her feathered since his death, to humour mother, I may have charges, and milking the kine, if indeed the gone between the stilts, there's no need to let calves did not spare her the trouble. He, a myself down in the eyes of the whole parish. fine-looking young man, rather tall than short, What would that cold sneering purse-proud but firmly and vigorously formed, with a bright uncle of mine and his fine daughters say, open countenance and a glowing complexion, wonder? Come, Phoebe, don't look so grave was as evidently a farmer's son. His straw-you'll go to the Maying, won't you? What hat was placed rather on one side on his glossy auburn curls, with the true air of a village beau, and his dark velveteen jacket and the silk handkerchief just knotted round his throat had as much of real study in the apparent carelessness of their adjustment as would have done honour to the veriest coxcomb of oneand-twenty that ever danced at Almack's-personal vanity being astonishingly alike in all stations. A coxcomb, I grieve to say, was Maurice Elliott; and yet, being heartily in love, he had the best chance that could befall him of getting rid of his coxcombry. At present, however, to judge by the dialogue passing between them, their "course of true "Forgive me, dearest Phoebe! pray, pray love" was very far from "running smooth." forgive me! I did not intend-I did not dream It was more like a game of cross pur--oh! Phoebe, I never think of you but as one poses than a meeting at sunset between two lovers.

"What would your proud uncle and your fine cousins say to that, I wonder? You are a farmer's son, as you truly say, Mr. Maurice Elliott, and I am a labourer's daughter. God forbid that I should be ashamed of being the child of an honest man, let his condition be ever so poor!" and Phoebe, though her tone was gentle, drew her stool a little back with an air of self-respect that approached to dignity.

Her lover felt the reproof.

so much better than myself! you do forgive me then?" said he, answering the bright dimpled smile which required no words to confirm her pardon. "You do forgive me, and you'll let me drive you to this Maying? We are to have a cricket-match and a dance, and it will be so pretty a sight! Why do you shake your head? Is there any secret in the matter?"

"You won't go with me, then, to the Maying, Phœbe?" said the youth impatiently, twisting round his fingers a long supple branch which he had just twitched from a weeping willow that overhung the goose-pond, never dreaming the while that he was, so far as action went, emulating one of the most eloquent "No secret at all, Maurice," said Phebe.

I'll tell you the truth; you'll not be ashamed of it, though your fine cousins would. Poor Uncle George has been so ill this spring that he has not been able to get his allotment dug or planted, and you know the allotment-ground is his chief dependence. The children would be half starved without the vegetables, and the refuse keeps the pig. So father and mother are going to give him a day's labour to get in the potatoes, and I'm going to help. That's my holiday, and a very happy one it will be. Uncle George was always so good to me, and so was aunt, and I love the children dearly. You'll see what a day's work I shall do."

"Dear good Phœbe! I wish I could help too; only I have promised to make one of the eleven, and I can't desert them just at last. But I'll tell you what I can do. Your little cousin George, who lives with us, I can let him go home and help."

Another bright smile repaid the kindness. "But this ploughing-match, Maurice! that will be a pretty sight too! and you, who can do every thing better than the other lads of the parish, why should not you be as proud of being the best ploughman as the best cricketer or the best shot? Nay, but you must listen to me, Maurice: whatever the purse-proud uncle or the fine cousins may say, I have good cause to believe that your trying for the prize would please one person besides myself your own good landlord, Colonel Lisle."

Maurice's brow darkened. He drew up his person to his full stature, and spoke angrily and bitterly:

"My own good landlord! Would you believe, Phoebe, that after living upon his estate, I and my fathers, these hundred years and more, paying his rent to a day, and doing as much justice to his land as if it were really our own, this good landlord of ours, the lease being upon the point of expiring, has sent us notice to quit!" He turned away in proud and angry sorrow.

"Notice! but has any one taken the farm?" inquired Phoebe.

"Not yet, I fancy; but he will find no difficulty in letting it. The lands lie close to my uncle's, and I have sometimes thought at all events we have notice."

"But for what reason?"

"Oh! your rich landlord can easily find a reason for ridding himself of a poor tenant. The message was civil enough as regarded mother. If she had wished to remain in the farm, he would have had no objection; but, as her request was that the lease might be renewed in my favour, he could not comply. I was unfit for a farmer, he said; never in my business, always shooting, or coursing, or cricketing; never at home; never attending to the main chance; unthrifty in every thing; and about, he heard"-and then, suddenly, Maurice Elliott checked himself, and paused.

thing, when you might have married your cousin Harriet with more money than I know how to reckon. Oh! Maurice! Maurice! little did I think when your own dear mother gave her consent, because I was active and industrious and an honest man's daughter, and because the son she loved so well loved me, little did I think that she would be turned from her home for that great goodness. But it must not be, dear Maurice! We must part! We must not marry, to have your mother turned out of doors; neither of us would be happy so. I can speak to my mistress-she is so very kind-and go to live with her friends a great way off. And you will give up coursing and shooting (you know you had promised me to do that,) and then, when Colonel Lisle finds that your heart is in your business, all will go right again, and you will stay at the Linden Farm, and we shall be happy."-And by way of earnest of this coming felicity, poor Phoebe burst into a violent fit of sobbing.

Maurice exhausted himself in protestations to do him justice, most sincere-of love, everlasting love, to Phoebe, and hatred, equally durable and equally sincere, towards uncle, cousin, landlord, and, in short, all who sought to separate him from his beloved; assuring her that Colonel Lisle's whole estate would not bribe him to renounce his engagement; that, go where she might, he would follow: and that, so far from desiring to continue at their old home, nothing would induce him to remain the tenant of a landlord so unjust and despotic, one who had condemned, without hearing, the descendant of a race who had lived under his father and his father's fathers-ay, even from the planting of the great lime-trees which gave their name to the farm. But if Maurice was vehement, Phœbe, whose hysterical sobbing had ended in quiet and relieving tears, continued gently firm.

"You would not make me wretched, Maurice; I know that you would not; and how could I be otherwise if I were to cause your ruin? I shall go into Kent, to Mrs. Holden's sister, and Colonel Lisle will think better than to dismiss the son of his old tenant. Go to him, dear Maurice! Speak to him yourself! Explain-"

"Go to him, indeed! speak to him! Explain! I can tell you, Phœbe, that he must come to me if he wishes me to stay upon his land. There are other farms in the county beside his. We are no bond-slaves, blessed be God! in merry England. But don't you go, Phœbe! Stay and let me tell you of my plans; or, if you must go, promise at least to see me, and to give me a full hearing, before you leave Hilton. Promise me this. Stay at least till this ploughing-match is over. That will be a holiday far and near. See me then, and I will let this dear hand go."

And Phoebe, blushing, sighing, and protest"About to marry a poor girl without a far-ing against a meeting which would only be a

renewal of pain, did, however, give the re-scribes his five shillings claims "a voice po

quired promise; and the lovers parted-she for her in-door duties, he for the home he was so soon to relinquish.

tential, as double as the duke's," who lays down his twenty pounds, (and that the facts are little exaggerated, will be readily admitted by most who have been behind the scenes in such societies,) so let me proudly say the illhumour having once found a vent, works itself clear, and the rough burly disputants come round again, shake hands, and hear reason, with a readiness and facility just as characteristic of our national manners, where a squabble once over is over for ever, and a quarrel fairly reconciled only leaves the opponents faster friends than before. Accordingly, by the time the appointed day arrived, all was peace and amity, and joyous bustle, and the scene took its usual cordial and hearty character of a meeting calculated to advance the interests and promote the happiness of all classes.

They who witness those pretty rural festivals, with all their picturesque accessaries of tent and marquée, banners and bands, gay and happy crowds, shaded by noble trees and lighted by bright sunshine, and fanned by the sweet airs of the fairest of the seasons; or they who read the elaborate account of the day's proceedings in the county newspapers, where all is chronicled en couleur de rose, from the earliest procession to the latest cheer, little guess the trouble, and turmoil, and tracasseries which this apparently most amicable and peaceful celebration occasions in its district. The ostensible competitors, whose province it is to contend for the prizes, are for the most part, (the winners being satisfied, of course, and the Some weeks had elapsed since the dialogue losers soothed and comforted by encouraging between the lovers in Farmer Holden's barnspeeches and a good dinner,-solid pudding yard, and reports were rife in the village of a added to empty praise,) as good-humoured and strange change in the fortunes of the young contented as heart can desire; their unlucky tenant of the Linden Farm. His father's will, patrons and protectors, the Association, in its it was said, threw him entirely into the power own proper person, having previously gone of his hard-hearted and purse-proud uncle, Stethrough as much fussing and disputing, squab-phen Elliott. There were different versions ling and quarrelling, as would carry a candidate through a county election, or produce a tragedy upon the boards of a theatre royal.

One committee-man threatened to resign because he was not a vice-president, and one vice-president did send in his resignation because he was not the president. One very great man (an Earl) applied to to assume that high office, never answered the secretary's letter; and another great man (a Viscount) coquetted, and poohed, and 'pshawed, and finally declined, because the Earl had been written to first. The committee had five meetings to consider of the place where they ought to meet; four to consider of the day of celebration; three of the hour of dinner; and the grand question of in doors or out of doors, marquée or barn, very nearly caused a dissolution of the society; party having run so high that two of the members, after scolding themselves hoarse, arrived at that state of dumb resentment which answers to the white heat of the anvil, and did not speak. They quarrelled about the value of the clothes, about the devices of the banners, about the colours of the cockades,-in short there was nothing which admitted of two opinions about which they did not quarrel; so that the chief dignitaries of the Association, the chairman, treasurer, and secretary, who had endeavoured to add to their several offices that of pacificatorsgeneral, declared that all the ploughmen and all their teams would not work half as hard on the day of trial as they had done during the time of preparation.

But this spirit of opposition, for opposition sake, is a little too much the fashion in our free country, where the good yeoman who sub

of the story, and no one spoke as of positive knowledge; but one fact seemed certain, that Maurice's negotiation for a farm of the same extent with that which he now occupied, had been cut short by the intervention of his stern relative, and that he was now seeking to rent a few acres of pasture-land attached to a cottage in the Moors. He and Phoebe had not again met, but, pursuant to her promise, she had not yet left Hilton, and was now dressing for the ploughing-match at her mother's cottage, with a feeling of light-heartedness for which she would have found it difficult to account. Was she could she be conscious that her lover's gaze was fixed upon her through the open door? or was the knowledge that he was no longer the rich, and, to use the country phrase, the somewhat prodigal young farmer, but nearer her own level, brightening her eyes, and glowing in her cheek, with a hope that she had never put into words-a hope unacknowledged even to her own heart? or did she give more credit than she thought she did, to the report of her little cousin George, that he and his master were, after all, to try for the prizes at the ploughing-match? Phebe knew that Stephen Elliott had said, with his scornful sneer and bitter tone, "Let him try for the suit of clothes- - he may want 'em!" and Phoebe knew enough of her lover's temper to feel that this very taunt, uttered to keep him from the scene, was likely to take a different effect upon his high spirit. "At all events," thought she, "I shall see him!" and she dressed herself, in a flutter of spirits with which vanity had little to do, and then sat down quietly to await her father, whom she was to accompany, and to whom the first prize was