ed like a study for a painter-no mistaking him. Yes! I know every man and boy of note in the parish, with one exception,-one most signal exception, which "haunts and startles and waylays" me at every turn. I do not know, and I begin to fear that I never shall know Jack Hatch. beat us. quiries as to this great player were received with utter astonishment. "Who is Jack Hatch ?" "Not know Jack Hatch!" There was no end to the wonder-" not to know him argued myself unknown." "Jack Hatchthe best cricketer in the parish, in the county, in the country! Jack Hatch, who had got seven notches at one hit! Jack Hatch, who had trolled, and caught out a whole eleven! Jack Hatch, who besides these marvellous gifts in cricket, was the best bowler and the best musician in the hundred,-could dance a hornpipe and a minuet, sing a whole songbook, bark like a dog, mew like a cat, crow like a cock, and go through Punch from beginning to end! Not know Jack Hatch!" Half ashamed of my non-acquaintance with this admirable Crichton of rural accomplishments, I determined to find him out as soon as possible, and I have been looking for him more or less, ever since. The cricket-ground and the bowling-green were of course, the first places of search; but he was always just gone, or not come, or he was there yesterday, or he is expected to-morrow-a to-morrow which, as far as I am concerned, never arrives;-the stars were against me. Then I directed my attention to his other acquirements; and once followed a balladsinger half a mile, who turned out to be a strapping woman in a man's great-coat; and another time pierced a whole mob of urchins to get at a capital Punch-when behold, it was the genuine man of puppets, the true squeakery, the "real Simon Pure," and Jack was as much to seek as ever. The first time I had occasion to hear of this worthy, was on a most melancholy occurrence. We have lost-I do not like to talk about it, but I cannot tell my story withoutwe have lost a cricket match, been beaten, and soundly too, by the men of Beech-hill, a neighbouring parish. How this accident happened, I cannot very well tell; the melancholy fact is sufficient. The men of Beech-hill, famous players, in whose families cricket is an hereditary accomplishment, challenged and After our defeat, we began to comfort ourselves by endeavouring to discover how this misfortune could possibly have befallen. Every one that has ever had a cold, must have experienced the great consolation that is derived from puzzling out the particular act of imprudence from which it sprang, and we on the same principle, found our affliction somewhat mitigated by the endeavour to trace it to its source. One laid the catastrophe to the wind -a very common scapegoat in the catarrhal calamity-which had, as it were, played us booty, carrying our adversary's balls right and ours wrong; another laid it to a certain catch missed by Tom Willis, by which means Farmer Thackum, the pride and glory of the Beech-hillers, had two innings; a third to the aforesaid Thackum's remarkable manner of bowling, which is cir- At last I thought that I had actually caught cular, so to say, that is, after taking aim, he him, and on his own peculiar field, the cricketmakes a sort of chassée on one side, before he ground. We abound in rustic fun, and good delivers his ball, which pantomimic motion humour, and of course in nick-names. had a great effect on the nerves of our eleven, certain senior of fifty, or thereabout, for inunused to such quadrilling; a fourth imputed stance, of very juvenile habits and inclinaour defeat to the over-civility of our umpire, tions, who plays at ball, and marbles, and George Gosseltine, a sleek, smooth, silky, soft-spoken person, who stood with his little wand under his arm, smiling through all our disasters-the very image of peace and good humour; whilst their umpire, Bob Coxe, a roystering, roaring, bullying blade, bounced, and hectored, and blustered from his wicket, with the voice of a twelve-pounder; the fifth assented to this opinion, with some extension, asserting that, the universal impudence of their side took advantage of the meekness and modesty of ours, (N. B. it never occurred to our modesty, that they might be the best players) which flattering persuasion appeared likely to prevail, in fault of a better, when all on a sudden, the true reason of our defeat seemed to burst at once from half a dozen voices, reechoed like a chorus by all the others "It was entirely owing to the want of Jack Hatch! How could we think of playing without Jack Another youth, regular at cricket, but never Hatch!" seen except then, of unknown parish, and This was the first I heard of him. My in-parentage, and singular uncouthness of person, A cricket, with all the boys in the parish, and joins a kind merry buoyant heart to an aspect somewhat rough and care-worn, has no other appellation that ever I heard but "Uncle;" I don't think, if by any strange chance he were called by it, that he would know his own name. On the other hand, a little stunted pragmatical urchin, son and heir of Dick Jones, an absolute old man cut shorter, so slow, and stiff, and sturdy, and wordy, passes universally by the title of "Grandfather"-I have not the least notion that he would answer to Dick. Also a slim, grim-looking, whiteheaded lad, whose hair is bleached, and his skin browned by the sun, till he is as hideous as an Indian idol, goes, good lack! by the pastoral misnomer of the "Gentle Shepherd." Oh manes of Allan Ramsay! the Gentle Shepherd! dress, and demeanour, rough as a badger, most remote and discrepant issue in Jack ragged as a colt, and sour as verjuice, was Hatch. He caught Dame Wheeler's squirrel; known, far more appropriately, by the cog- the Magpie at the Rose owes to him the half nomen of "Oddity." Him, in my secret soul, dozen phrases with which he astounds and I pitched on for Jack Hatch. In the first delights the passers-by; the very dog Tero, place, as I had in the one case a man without an animal of singular habits, who sojourns a name, and in the other a name without a occasionally at half the houses in the village, man, to have found these component parts of making each his home till he is affrontedindividuality meet in the same person, to have Tero himself, best and ugliest of finders—a made the man to fit the name, and the name mongrel compounded of terrier, cur, and fit the man, would have been as pretty a way spaniel-Tero, most remarkable of ugly dogs, of solving two enigmas at once, as hath been inasmuch as he constantly squints, and comheard of since ŒEdipus his day. But besides monly goes on three legs, holding up first the obvious convenience and suitability of this one, and then the other, out of a sort of quadbelief, I had divers other corroborating reasons. rupedal economy to ease those useful memOddity was young, so was Jack; -Oddity bers-Tero himself is said to belong of right came up the hill from leaward, so must Jack; and origin to Jack Hatch. -Oddity was a capital cricketer, so was Jack; Every where that name meets me. "T was -Oddity did not play in our unlucky Beech- but a few weeks ago that I heard him asked hill match, neither did Jack ;—and, last of all, in church, and a day or two afterwards I saw Oddity's name was Jack, a fact I was fortunate the tail of the wedding procession, the little enough to ascertain from a pretty damsel who lame clerk handing the bridemaid, and a girl walked up with him to the ground one even- from the Rose running after them with pipes, ing, and who on seeing him bowl out Tom passing by our house. Nay, this very mornCoper, could not help exclaiming in a solilo-ing, some one was speaking-Dead! what quy, as she stood a few yards behind us, dead? Jack Hatch dead?-a name, a shadow, looking on with all her heart, "Well done, a Jack o' lantern! Can Jack Hatch die? Hath Jack!" That moment built up all my hopes; he the property of mortality? Can the bell the next knocked them down. I thought I toll for him? Yes! there is the coffin and the had clutched him, but willing to make assur-pall-all that I shall ever see of him is there! ance doubly sure, I turned to my pretty neigh-There are his comrades following in decent bour, (Jack Hatch too had a sweetheart) and sorrow-and the poor pretty bride, leaning on said in a tone half affirmative, half interroga- the little clerk-My search is over-. tory, "That young man who plays so well is Hatch is dead! Jack Hatch?"-"No, ma'am, Jack Bolton!" and Jack Hatch remained still a sound, a name, a mockery. Well! at last I ceased to look for him, and might possibly have forgotten my curiosity, had not every week produced some circumstance to relumine that active female passion. -Jack EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. MY SCHOOL-FELLOWS. I seemed beset by his name, and his presence, invisibly as it were. Will of the wisp is nothing to him; Puck, in that famous Midsummer Dream, was a quiet goblin compared to Jack Hatch. He haunts one in dark places. ALL the world knows what a limited numThe fiddler, whose merry tones come ringing ber of pupils means; our stint was twenty; across the orchard in a winter's night from and really, considering the temptations of great Farmer White's barn, setting the whole village girls, very great girls, too old to learn, as para dancing, is Jack Hatch. The whistler, who lour-boarders; and little girls, very little girls, trudges homeward at dusk up Kibe's lanes, too young to learn, as pets, we kept to it vastly out-piping the nightingale, in her own month well. We were not often more than thirty; of May, is Jack Hatch. And the indefatigable principally because the house would not, with learner of the bassoon, whose drone, all last a proper regard to health and accommodation harvest, might be heard in the twilight, issu-points never forgotten by our excellent-ining from the sexton's dwelling on the Little tentioned governess-conveniently contain a Lea, "making night hideous," that iniquitous practiser is Jack Hatch. The name meets me all manner of ways. I have seen it in the newspaper for a prize of pinks; and on the back of a warrant on the charge of poaching;—N. B., the constable had my luck, and could not find the culprit, otherwise I might have had some chance of seeing him on that occasion. Things the greater number. If the next house could have been procured, we should soon have increased to fifty; and, indeed, might have gone on gradually multiplying till we had travelled half round the square: for Mrs. S. had always a difficulty in saying no-that ugliest of monosyllables-and the task was not rendered easier when she was beset by the mingled temptations of interest, flattery, and affection. It was best as it was; we were quite enough, even though, early in my abode, a lucky accident incident to the state ridded us of those anomalous personages, the parlour-boarders. mystery, the importance! The whole school was on tiptoe to find out the secret, and the confidante was in great danger of telling, when, luckily for her reputation, the secret told itself. One fine night, when the moon shone brightly, the fair Tilburina set off for Gretna Green. After this we had no more parlour-boarders. An old pupil having arrived at the presentation age, seventeen, and her guardians not knowing exactly what to do with her, she was continued in H. P. upon that footing. I shall never forget the difference that one day But although we had no more parlourmade in this fair damsel. Translated on a boarders, we were fertile in great girls,sudden from the school-room to the drawing- young ladies sent from the country for "imroom! preferred at once over the heads of her provement," as the milliners say, who, after fellows! I never saw such a change. Per- a seven years' apprenticeship in some provin haps a parrenu of the French Revolution might cial fashion-shop, come up to the capital to be be something like it, or a boy officer in his finished: (alas! they generally found that they first regimentals, or a knight of the last edi- had to begin)—or the desperately naughty and tion, or an author the night of a successful the hopelessly dull, banished from home to be play, or a court beauty in her birth-day plumes, out of the way, and to try what school would or any other shuttlecock pate, giddy with hap-do; — or the luckless daughters of the newly piness and vanity. She was no worse, poor thing, than most girls of seventeen or eighteen; that transition state when learning is laid aside and knowledge not come; she was ostentatiously idle always, and affrontingly gracious, or astoundingly impertinent by fits and starts -patronised one day and forgot the next. No M. P. freshly elected for an independent borough, ever experienced a more sudden loss of memory. There was nothing remarkable in this but unluckily nature never intended our poor parvenue for a lady of consequence. She was born to be a child all her days! and, which was much worse, to look like one; the most insignificant little fair-haired girl that ever lived. Dress did nothing for her; her very milliner gave her up in despair. Gowns turned into frocks when tied round her slim straight waist;-caps, turbans, feathers, muffs, all artificial means of giving age, and size, and importance, failed in this unfortunate case. Never did a faded beauty take so much pains to look like a girl, as she did to look like a woman. I believe that she would have consented to be dressed like her grandmother, if it would have made her seem as old. But all was in vain; time only could cure her obstinate youthfulness of form and expression, and time travelled rather slower with the idle girl than he had been used to do with the busy one; so that, after a few days' display of her gay plumage, she wearied of her airs and her finery, and withdrew as much as possible from her old companions, to partake of the larger society and more varied amusements amongst which she began to be introduced. Three months after, she reappeared in the schoolroom quite a different creature, absent, pensive, languishing, silly beyond her usual silliness, and in great want of a sympathising friend. She soon found one of course; every "Tilburina, mad in white satin," may make sure of a "confidante mad in white dimity." She soon found a friend, a tall, sleepy-eyed girl, as simple as herself-and then the closetings, the note-writings, the whisperings, the wealthy, on whom the magic air of a London seminary was expected to work as sudden a transformation as the wand of Cinderella's fairy godmother. They were the most to be pitied. How often, during the fiery ordeal of the first half-year, they must have wished themselves poor again!-The most interesting of these unfortunate rich people were three. sisters from Orkney, the youngest past sixteen, whose mother had unexpectedly succeeded to the large inheritance of an Indian cousin. They were gentlewomen born and bred, these Minnas and Brendas of the Shetland islands, though as wild and unformed and as much used to liberty as their country ponies. Unaccomplished they were of course, but they could never have been thought ignorant any where but in a London school. The mistake lay in sending them there, amongst a tribe of little pedants, with all the scaffolding of learning about them. The eldest bore the transition pretty well. She had health too delicate to enjoy in all its license her natural freedom; ¦ and had lived two or three years with an aunt in Edinburgh, so that she was become in a manner reconciled to civilization; beside she had a natural taste for elegance and refinement, and gave her whole attention and free will to the difficult task of beginning at twenty to conquer the rudiments of French and Italian, and music and drawing. The second sister¦ weathered the storm almost equally well, though in a different manner. She was so overflowing with health and spirits, so fearless and uncaring, so good humouredly open in confessing her deficiencies, and so wisely| regardless of lectures and exhortations, that she won her way through the turmoil of les- ' sons and masters, without losing an atom of her hardihood and buoyancy. To be sure she learned nothing; but there was no great harm in that. Her youngest sister was not so fortunate-Oh, that charming sister Anne! They were all fine tall young women, but Anne was something more. I never saw any thing so lovely as her bright blooming complexion, her -- -- glittering blue eyes, and her light agile form, Even that point she might have compassed, when in some cold windy morning that re- had not her features and voice stood in her minded her of Orkney, she would bound across way—a lurking slyness in her smile and eye, the garden, with her hat in her hand, and her and a sort of fulsello tone in her speech. But brown curling hair about her shoulders, for- she did no harm, and meant none. She drove getting in the momentary enjoyment, where straight to her objects, but she took care not she was and all around her. That blessed to overset the passers-by. Charlotte, the next oblivion could not last long; and then came sister, was not content with this negative the unconquerable misery of shame and fear merit; she had all the address of her elderand shyness, a physical want of liberty and born, and made a more generous use of it; fresh air, and a passionate and hopeless long- got praises and prizes for herself, and pardons ing for her early home. She pined and with- and holidays for all the world. Hers was ered away like a wild bird in a cage, or a real popularity-nobody could help loving hardy mountain plant in a hot-house; and Charlotte. She was like Catharine, too; but without any definite complaint, was literally it was such a pretty likeness, with her laughdying under the united influence of confine-ing gipsy face, and her irresistible power of ment, and smoke, and the French grammar. amusing. She was a most successful and They carried her into the country, first to Rich- daring mimic, made no scruple of taking peomond, then to Windsor Forest; but trees and ple off to their faces, and would march out of quiet waters had no power over her associa- the room after Mrs. S*** or poor Madame, tions. They talked of a journey to Italy, with the most perfect and ludicrous imitation that was worse still; she loathed the "sweet of the slow measured step of the one, and the breath of the south." At last they were wiser; mincing trip of the other, the very moment they took her home: and the sweet Anne, re- after she had coaxed them out of some favour. stored to her old habits and her own dear Nevertheless, we all loved Charlotte; besides island, recovered. Nothing else could have her delightful good humour, she used her insaved her. fluence so kindly, and was sure to take the A complete contrast to these fair Zetlanders weaker side. We all loved Charlotte. Jane, might be found in another triad of sisters, old la cadette, more resembled Catharine, only her settlers in H. P.,-short, dark, lively girls, ambition was of a lower flight. She was a who knew the school as men are sometimes cautious diplomatist, and aimed less at success said to know the town, and knew nothing else; than at safety, had a small quiet party amongst were clever there and there only. Their fa- the younger fry, was the pet of the housether, a widower and a man of business, sent maids, and won her way by little attentions, them from home mere infants, and, providing by mending gloves, making pincushions, kindly and carefully for their improvement and comfort, seldom sought to be pleased or troubled with their company. This was no hardship to these stirring spirits, who loved the busy stage on which they played such capital parts, foremost everywhere, especially in mischief, first to be praised and last to be found out. They were as nearly alike in age and stature, as three sisters born at three dif- All our sisters were not so much alike. ferent times, well could be,-any two of them One pair was strikingly different. The eldest, might have passed for twins; and having in the favourite of a very silly mother, was a common a certain readiness of apprehension, beauty, poor child, and subject to all the disa quickness of memory, and an extraordinary cipline which growing beauties are fated to pliability of temper, as well as the brown endure. Oh the lacing, the bracing, the boncomplexion, the trim small figure and quick neting, the veiling, the gloving, the staying black eye, they usually passed for fac-similes within for fear of sun or wind or frost or fog! of one another in mind and person. There Her mamma would fain have had her wear a were differences, however, in both. Catha- mask to preserve her complexion, and so much rine, the eldest, was by far the most perfect dreaded the sweet touch of the air, that her specimen of school craft. She was a mancu- poor victim seldom got out of doors, and had vrer such as it did one good to see; got places little other exercise than dancing and the and prizes nobody knew how; escaped by a dumb-bells. I am sure she would have given miracle from all scrapes; was a favourite at "all the worlds that people ever have to give,' once with the French teacher and the English; to be plain. Morally speaking, perhaps it was was idle, yet cited for industry; naughty, yet well for her that beauty should come in the held up as a pattern of good conduct; tho- shape of so disagreeable a consciousness; it roughly selfish, and yet not disliked. She effectually preserved her from vanity. She was, in short, a perfect stateswoman; wound was a most genuine, kind-hearted, natural the whole school round her finger; and want-girl, thoroughly free from conceit or pretened nothing of art but the art to conceal it. sion of any kind. Her sister Julia had enough drawing patterns, and running on errands, in which last accomplishment she had an alertness so surprising, that Madame used to say she dazzled her eyes. In spite of her oblig ingness, nobody thought of loving Miss Jane; but she got on astonishingly well without it, and managed her wisers and betters by falling in with their ways. Besides the usual complement of languid East Indians, and ardent Creoles, we had our full share of foreigners. Of one charming Italian girl, much older than myself, I remember little but the sweet sighing voice, the graceful motions, and the fine air of the head. I always think of her when I look at the Cartoons;-Raphael must have studied from such women. She left school shortly after my arrival there, and was succeeded by an exquisitely pretty Anglo-Portuguese, whom, from her name, her aversion to roast pig-strange antipathy!—and her regularly spending Saturday at home, we suspected (for it was not avowed) to be a Jewess. Be that as it may, she was the most splendid piece of natural colouring that ever I beheld. An ivory complexion, with cheeks and lips like damask roses, black laughing eyes with long silky lashes, and rich clusters of black curls parting on her white brow. She was beauty itself. She soon went away too; and then came the daughter of a crack-brained Austrian Baron, straight from Vienna. There was nothing remarkable in her face or person, except the tender expression of her large blue eyes: yet she was peculiar from her foreign dress and manner, and her ignorance of all languages save her native German, and so much Italian as might help her through the most ordinary wants and duties of the day. Above all, she was interesting from her gentleness, her melancholy, and her early and disastrous fate. She died suddenly during the summer holidays. How many young hearts grieved for her, even amid the joys of home; and how we missed her sweet patient looks, her few words for both. Miss Julia was the pet of a father, who was, though in a different line, quite as silly as his wife; and having a tolerable memory, a plodding spirit of application, and an unbounded appetite for applause, was in training for a learned lady, a blue stocking in embryo. What an insufferable little pedant it was, with its studies and its masters, more in number than the instructors of the bourgeois • gentilhomme, its dictionaries of arts and sciences, and its languages without end! Words! words! words! nothing but words! One idea would have put her out. It was a pity, too, for she was a good-natured and well-meaning person, only so grave and dull and formal. However precious her learning might have been, she would have bought it dearly, for it cost her her youthfulness, at thirteen she was old. Neither did this incessant diligence tell as one might have expected with her masters; they praised her of course, and held her up as an example to the clever and the idle; but I don't think they would have been much charmed to have had many such pupils. Certainly she was the least in the world of a goose; always troublesome in asking stupid questions, and more troublesome still in not understanding the answers. Once, indeed, she made a grand display of science and erudition. Mr. Walker came to give us a course of lectures, and Miss Julia pulled out a little square red book, and made notes-notes in a sort of hieroglyphic, which she was pleased to call short-hand; incomprehensible notes-notes that may sometimes have been paralleled since at the Royal Institution, but which_nobody had ever dreamed of in our school. Oh! the glory of those pot-hooks and hangers! As if all words of kindness, it seemed as if she purposely to enhance her reputation, one of her class-fellows, who was in a careless idle way something of a rival to Miss Julia, happened to be an egregious coward, hated guns and gunpowder, squibs and crackers, and all those iniquitous shocks and noises which are at once sudden and unexpected. She had sitten out, with grief and pain, by help of ducking her head, shutting her eyes, and putting her fingers in her ears, two or three popgun lectures on chemistry and mechanics: but when the electricity came, she could bear it no longer she fairly ran away, escaped un-education, began under a private governess, perceived in the melée, and esconced herself under her own bed, where she might have remained undetected till doomsday, had not the unforeseen vigour of a cleanly housemaid, fresh from the country, fairly unearthed her, actually swept her out. Think, what a contrast! What a triumph! Courage, and short-hand notes of lectures, on the one side; cowardice, ignorance, and running away on the other! Miss Julia was never so tall in her life. The éclat of the little square book even consoled her, when, in the week after this adventure, a prize, for which she had been trying all the halfyear, was wrested from her by the runaway. could learn no other-when we returned! We were not wise to grieve; her short life had been a life of sorrow, and the grave was her best resting-place. It is not wise-but still, after a lapse of twenty years, it saddens me to think of her death. And there is another, and a far dearer school-fellow, a foreigner, too, of whom I think almost as sadly; for we are parted by such distance, that even now as I write I know not if she be alive or dead. I speak of the young countess C., sent from Russia for the advantage of an English and concluded with us. She resembled the Greek drama in her pure and harmonious beauty; and the gentle dignity of her manner sustained the impression. Every body admired her, though only one dared to love her; and the repaying that love by the most constant and cordial affection allowed not much intercourse beyond a general kindness and good-will with the rest of our little world. In truth, she had no time for intimacies; she had a hunger and a thirst for knowledge, such as I have never seen equalled; knowledge of all sorts and degrees, from the most trifling womanly occupations-making gum-seals, |