window; the little flower-court underneath, full of holly-oaks, cloves, and dahlias, and the large sloping meadow beyond, leading up to farmer Bell's tall irregular house, half covered with a flaunting vine; his barns, and ricks, and orchard;-all this formed an apartment too tempting to remain long untenanted, in the bright month of August: accordingly, it was almost immediately engaged by a gentleman in black, who walked over, one fair morning, paid ten pounds as a deposit, sent for his trunk from the next town, and took possession on the instant. Her new inmate, who, without positively declining to give his name, had yet contrived to evade all the questions Mrs. Kent could devise, proved a perpetual source of astonishment, both to herself and her neighbours. He was a well-made, little man, near upon forty; with considerable terseness of feature, a forehead of great power, whose effect was increased by a slight baldness on the top of the head, and an eye like a falcon. Such an eye! It seemed to go through you to strike all that it looked upon, like a coup-de-soleil. Luckily, the stranger was so merciful as, generally, to wear spectacles; under cover of which those terrible eyes might see, and be seen, without danger. His habits were as peculiar as his appear ance. He was moderate, and rather fanciful in his diet; drank nothing but water, or strong coffee, made, as Mrs. Kent observed, very wastefully; and had, as she also remarked, a great number of heathenish-looking books scattered about the apartment-Lord Berners's Froissart, for instance, Sir Thomas Brown's Urn Burial, the Baskerville Ariosto,-Goethe's Faust, a Spanish Don Quixote-and an interleaved Philoctetes, full of outline drawings. The greater part of his time was spent out of doors. He would, even, ramble away, for three or four days together, with no other companion than a boy, hired in the village to carry what Mrs. Kent denominated his odds and ends; which odds and ends consisted, for the most part, of an angling-rod and a sketching apparatus our incognito being, as my readers have, by this time, probably discovered, no other than an artist, on his summer progress. Robert speedily understood the stranger, and was delighted with the opportunity of approaching so gifted a person: although he contemplated, with a degree of generous envy, which a king's regalia would have failed to excite in his bosom, those chef d'auvres of all nations which were to him as "sealed books," and the pencils, whose power seemed to him little less than creative. He redoubled his industry in the garden, that he might, conscientiously, devote hours and half-hours, to pointing out the deep pools and shallow eddies of their romantic stream, where he knew, from experience (for Robert, amongst his other accomplishments, was no mean "brother of the angle,") that fish were likely to be found; and, better still, he loved to lead to the haunts of his childhood, the wild bosky dells, and the sunny ends of lanes, where a sudden turn in the track, an overhanging tree, an old gate, a cottage chimney, and a group of cattle or children, had, sometimes, formed a picture, on which his mind had fed for hours. It was Robert's chief pleasure to entice his lodger to scenes such as these, and to see his own visions growing into reality, under the glowing pencil of the artist; and he, in his turn, would admire, and marvel at, the natural feeling of the beautiful, which could lead an uninstructed country-youth instinctively to the very elements of the picturesque. A general agreement of taste had brought about a degree of association unusual between persons so different in rank: a particular instance of this accordance dissolved the intimacy. Robert had been, for above a fortnight, more than commonly busy in Mr. Lescombe's gardens and hot-houses, so busy that he even slept at the hall; the stranger, on the other hand, had been, during the same period, shut up, painting, in the little parlour. At last, they met; and the artist invited his young friend to look at the picture, which had engaged him during his absence. On walking into the room he saw on the easel, a picture in oils, almost finished. The style was of that delightful kind, which combines figures with landscape, the subject was Hay-carrying; and the scene, that very sloping meadow,-crowned by Farmer Bell's tall irregular house, its vinewreathed porch, and chimneys, the great walnut-tree before the door, the orchard and the homestead-which formed the actual prospect from the windows before them. In the foreground was a wagon piled with hay, surrounded by the Farmer and his fine family,some pitching, some loading, some raking after, all intent on their pleasant business. The only disengaged persons in the field were young Mary Kent and Harry Bell, an urchin of four years old, who rode on her knee on the top of the wagon, crowned and wreathed with garlands of vine-leaves, and bind-weed, and poppies, and corn-flowers. In the front looking up at Mary Kent, and her little brother, and playfully tossing to them the lock of hay which she had gathered on her rake, stood Susan Bell, her head thrown back, her bonnet half off, her light and lovely figure shown, in all its grace, by the pretty attitude and the short cool dress; while her sweet face, glowing with youth and beauty, had a smile playing over it, like a sunbeam. The boy was nodding and laughing to her, and seemed longing-as well he might-to escape from his flowery bondage, and jump into her arms. Never had poet framed a lovelier image of rural beauty! Never had painter more felicitously realized his conception! "Well, Robert!" exclaimed our artist, a little impatient of the continued silence, and missing the expected praise, "Well!" but still Robert spoke not. "Don't you think it a good subject?" continued the man of the easel: I was sitting at the window, reading Froissart, whilst they were carrying the after-crop, and by good luck happened to look up, just as they had arranged themselves into this very group, and as the evening sun came slanting, exactly as it does now, across the meadow; so I dashed in the sketch instantly, got Mary to sit to me, and a very pretty nymph-like figure she makes-dressed the boy with flowers, just as he was decked out for the harvest home-the rogue is, really, a fit model for a Cupid; they are a glorious family!-and persuaded Susan at that name, Robert, unable to control himself longer, rushed out of the room, leaving the astonished painter in the full belief that his senses had forsaken him. and so had Harry :-poor Harry had cried! but he was so merry and so kind, that neither of them minded sitting to him, now! And she was so glad that Robert had seen the picture; she had so wanted him to see it! it was too pretty, to be sure, but, then, Robert would not mind that. She had told the gentleman" "Go to the gentleman, now," interrupted Robert, "and tell him that I relinquish you. It will be welcome news! Go to him, Susan! your heart is with him. Go to him, I say!" and, throwing from him, with a bitter laugh, the frightened and weeping girl, who had laid her trembling hand on his arm, to detain him, he darted from the door, and returned to his old quarters at the hall. Another fortnight passed, and Robert still kept aloof from his family and his home. His mother and sister, indeed, occasionally saw him; and sad accounts had poor little Mary to give to her friend Susan, of Robert's ill looks and worse spirits. And Susan listened, and said she did not care; and burst into a passion of tears, and said she was very happy; and vowed never to speak to him again, and desired Mary never to mention her to him, or him to her, and then asked her a hundred questions respecting his looks and his words, and his illness, and charged her with a thousand tender messages, which, in the next breath, she withdrew. And Mary, too young to understand the inconsistencies of love, pitied, and comforted, and thought it "passing strange." In the meantime misfortunes of a different kind were gathering round Mrs. Kent. The meal-man and baker, whose bread she vended, her kindest friend and largest creditor, died, leaving his affairs in the hands of an attorney of the next town, the pest and terror of the neighbourhood; and, on the same day, she received two letters from this formidable lawyer,- one on account of his dead client, the baker, the other in behalf of his living client, the grocer, who ranked next amongst her creditors, both threatening that if their respective claims were not liquidated, on or before a certain day, proceedings would be commenced against her, forthwith. The unhappy lover, agonized by jealousy, pursued his way to the farm. He had, hitherto, contrived, although without confessing his motive, even to himself, to keep his friend and his mistress asunder. He had no fears of her virtue, or of his honour; but, to Robert's romantic simplicity, it seemed that no one could gaze on Susan without feeling ardent love, and that such a man as the artist could never love in vain. Besides, in the conversation which they had held together, he had dwelt on beauty and simplicity, as the most attractive points of female character:-Robert had felt, as he spoke, that Susan was the very being whom he described, and had congratulated himself that they were, still, unacquainted. But now, they had met; he had seen, he had studied, had transferred to canvass that matchless beauty; had conquered the timidity which, to Robert, had always seemed unconquerable; had won her to admit his gaze, had tamed that shyest, coyest dove; had become familiar with that sweetest face, and that dearest form:-Oh! the very thought was agony! In this mood, he arrived at the farm; and there, working at her needle under the vinewreathed porch, with the evening sun shining full upon her, and her little brother playing at her feet, sate his own Susan. She heard his rapid step, and advanced to meet him with a It is in such a situation that woman most smile and a blush of delight, just the smile feels her helplessness,-especially that forand blush of the picture. At such a moment, lorn creature whom the common people, adoptthey increased his misery; he repulsed her ing the pathetic language of Scripture, desigoffered hand, and poured forth a torrent of nate by the expressive phrase, "a lone woquestions on the subject which possessed his man!" Poor Judith sate down to cry, in mind. Her innocent answers were fuel to his powerless sorrow and vain self-pity. She frenzy:"The picture! had he seen the pic-opened, indeed, her hopeless day-book, — but ture? and was it not pretty much too pretty, she thought, but every body called it like! and Mary and Harry was not he pleased with them? What a wonderful thing it was to make a bit of canvass so like living creatures! and what a wonderful man the strange gentleman was! she had been afraid of him, at first-sadly afraid of those two bright eyes she knew too well, that her debtors could not pay. She had no one to consult, for her lodger, in whose general cleverness she had great confidence, had been absent, on one of his excursions, almost as long as her son,and time pressed upon her,—for the letters, sent with the usual indirectness of country conveyance, originally given to the carrier, confided by the carrier to the butterman, carried on by the butterman to the next village, left for three days at a public-house, and, finally, delivered at Hilton Cross, by a return post-boy, had been nearly a week on the road. Saturday was the day fixed for payment, and this was Friday night! and Michaelmas and rent-day were approaching! and unable even to look at this accumulation of misery, poor Judith laid her head on her fruitless accomptbook, and sobbed aloud! It was with a strangely mingled feeling of comfort in such a son, and sorrow so to grieve him, that she heard Robert's voice at her side, asking, tenderly, what ailed her? She put the letters into his hands; and he, long prepared for the blow, soothed and cheered her. "All must be given up," he said, "and he would go with her the next day, to make over the whole property. Let us pay, as far as our means go, mother," pursued he, "and do not fear but, some day or other, we shall be able to discharge all our debts. God will speed an honest purpose. In the mean time, Mr. Lescombe will give us a cottage-I know he will-and I shall work for you and Mary. It will be something to live for-something worth living for. Be comforted, dear mother!" He stooped, as he said this, and kissed her; and when he arose, he saw Susan standing opposite to him, and behind her, the stranger. They had entered separately, during the conversation between the mother and son, and Susan was still unconscious of the artist's presence. She stood, in great agitation, pressing Mary's hand, (from whom she had heard the story,) and immediately began questioning Mrs. Kent, as to the extent of the calamity. "She had twenty pounds of her own, that her grandmother had left her;-but a hundred! did they want a whole hundred? and would they send Mrs. Kent to prison? and sell her goods and turn Mary out of doors? and Robert-Oh! how ill Robert looked ?-It would kill Robert!-Oh!" continued Susan, wringing her hands, "I would sell myself for a bond woman, I would be like a negro-slave for one hundred pounds!" "Would you?" said the stranger advancing, suddenly, from the door, and producing two bank-bills; "would you? well! we will strike a bargain. I will give you two hundred pounds for this little hand, only this little hand!"-" What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed Mrs. Kent; "what can you mean?" "Nothing but what is fair and honourable," returned her lodger; "let Susan promise to meet me at church, to-morrow, and here are two hundred pounds to dispose of, at her pleasure, to-night." "Susan! my dear Susan!". "Let her alone, mother!" interrupted Robert; "she must choose for herself!" and, for a few moments, there was a dead silence. Robert stood, leaning against the wall, pale as marble, his eyes cast down, and his lips compressed, in a state of forced 66 "Well, Susan !" said the artist, who had remained in tranquil expectation, surveying the group with his falcon eye, "Well, Susan! have you determined?"—The colour rose to her temples, and she answered firmly, Yes, sir: be pleased to take back the notes. I love nobody but Robert; and Robert loves me dearly, dearly! I know he does! Oh Mrs. Kent! you would not have me vex Robert, your own dear son, and he so ill,- would you? Let them take these things! they never can be so cruel as to put you in prison-you, who were always so kind to every body; and he will work for you! and I will work for you! Never mind being poor! better any thing than be false-hearted to my Robert!" "God for ever bless you, my Susan!" "God bless you, my dear child!" burst at once, from Robert and his mother, as they, alternately, folded her in their arms. "Pray take the notes, sir," repeated Susan, after a short interval. "No! that I will not do," replied the stranger, smiling. "The notes shall be yours,—are yours—and what is more, on my own conditions. Meet me at church to-morrow morning, and I shall have the pleasure of bestowing this pretty hand, as I always intended, on my good friend, Robert, here. I have a wife of my own at home, my dear, whom I would not exchange even for you; and I am quite rich enough to afford myself the luxury of making you happy. Besides, you have a claim to the money. These very bank-notes were gained by that sweet face! Your friend, Mr. Lescombe, Robert, has purchased the hay-carrying! We have had a good deal of talk about you, and I am quite certain that he will provide for you all. No thanks!" continued he, interrupting something that Robert was going to say,-"No thanks! no apologies! I won't hear a word. Meet me at church to-morrow! but, remember, young man, no more jealousy!" and, followed by a glance from Susan, of which Robert might have been jealous, the artist left the shop. OUR MAYING. As party produces party, and festival brings forth festival in higher life, so one scene of rural festivity is pretty sure to be followed by another. The boys' cricket-match at Whitsuntide, which was won most triumphantly by 198 our parish, and luckily passed off without giving cause for a coroner's inquest, or indeed without injury of any sort, except the demolition of Amos Stone's new straw-hat, the crown of which (Amos's head being fortunately at a distance,) was fairly struck out by the cricket-ball; this match produced one between our eleven and the players of the neighbouring hamlet of Whitley; and being patronised by the young lord of the manor and several of the gentry round, and followed by jumping in sacks, riding donkey-races, grinning through horse-collars, and other diversions more renowned for their antiquity than their elegance, gave such general satisfaction, that it was resolved to hold a Maying in full form in Whitley-wood. Now this wood of ours happens to be a common of twenty acres, with three trees on it, and the Maying was fixed to be held between hay-time and harvest; but "what's in a name?" Whitley-wood is a beautiful piece of greensward, surrounded on three sides by fields, and farm-houses, and cottages, and woody uplands, and on the other by a fine park; and the May-house was erected, and the May-games held in the beginning of July; the very season of leaves and roses, when the days are at the longest, and the weather at the finest, and the whole world is longing to get out of doors. Moreover, the whole festival was aided, not impeded, by the gentlemen amateurs, headed by that very genial person, our young lord of the manor; whilst the business part of the affair was confided to the well-known diligence, zeal, activity, and intelligence of that most popular of village landlords, mine host of the Rose. How could a Maying fail under such auspices? Every body expected more sunshine and more fun, more flowers and more laughing, than ever was known at a rustic merry-makingand really considering the manner in which expectation had been raised, the quantity of disappointment has been astonishingly small. Landlord Sims, the master of the revels, and our very good neighbour, is a portly, bustling man, of five-and-forty, or thereabout, with a hale, jovial visage, a merry eye, a pleasant smile, and a general air of good-fellowship. This last qualification, whilst it serves greatly to recommend his ale, is apt to mislead superficial observers, who generally account him a sort of slenderer Boniface, and imagine that, like that renowned hero of the spigot, Master Sims eats, drinks, and sleeps on his own anno domini. They never were more mistaken in their lives; no soberer man than Master Sims within twenty miles! Except for the good of the house, he no more thinks of drinking beer, than a grocer of eating figs. To be sure when the jug lags he will take a hearty pull, just by way of example, and to set the good ale agoing. But in general, he trusts to subtler and more delicate modes of quickening its circulation. A good song, a good story, a merry jest, a hearty laugh, and a most winning habit of assentation; these are his implements. There is not a better companion, or a more judicious listener in the county. His pliability is astonishing. He shall say yes to twenty different opinions on the same subject, within the hour; and so honest and cordial does his agreement seem, that no one of his customers, whether drunk or sober, ever dreams of doubting his sincerity. The hottest conflict of politics never puzzles him: Whig or Tory, he is both, or either-"the happy Mercutio, that curses both houses." Add to this gift of conformity, a cheerful, easy temper, an alacrity of attention, a zealous desire to please, which gives to his duties, as a landlord, all the grace of hospitality, and a perpetual civility and kindness, even when he has nothing to gain by them; and no one can wonder at Master Sims's popularity. After his good wife's death, this popularity began to extend itself in a remarkable manner amongst the females of the neighbourhood: smitten with his portly person, his smooth, oily manner, and a certain soft, earnest, whispering voice, which he 'generally assumes when addressing one of the fairer sex, and which seems to make his very "how d'ye do" confidential and complimentary. Moreover, it was thought that the good landlord was well to do in the world, and though Betsy and Letty were good little girls, quick, civil, and active, yet, poor things, what could such young girls know of a house like the Rose? All would go to rack and ruin without the eye of a mistress! Master Sims must look out for a wife. So thought the whole female world, and, apparently, Master Sims began to think so himself. The first fair one to whom his attention was directed, was a rosy, pretty widow, a pastrycook of the next town, who arrived in our village on a visit to her cousin, the baker, for the purpose of giving confectionary lessons to his wife. Nothing was ever so hot as that courtship. During the week that the lady of pie-crust staid, her lover almost lived in the oven. One would have thought that he was learning to make the cream-tarts without pepper, by which Bedreddin Hassan regained his state and his princess. It would be a most suitable match, as all the parish agreed; the widow, for as pretty as she was, (and one sha'n't often see a pleasanter, open countenance, or a sweeter smile,) being within ten years as old as her suitor, and having had two husbands already. A most proper and suitable match, said every body; and when our landlord carried her back to B..in his newpainted green cart, all the village agreed that they were gone to be married, and the ringers were just setting up a peal, when Master Sims returned alone, single, crest-fallen, de jected; the bells stopped of themselves, and for the rest, a good sort of woman, and un we heard no more of the pretty pastry-cook. très bon parti for Master Sims, who seemed For three months after that rebuff, mine host, to consider it a profitable speculation, and albeit not addicted to aversions, testified an made love to her whenever she happened to equal dislike to women and tartlets, widows come into his head, which, it must be conand plum-cake. Even poor Alice Taylor, fessed, was hardly so often as her merits and whose travelling basket of lollypops and gin- her annuity deserved. Remiss as he was, gerbread he had whilome patronized, was he had no lack of encouragement to complain forbidden the house; and not a bun or bis-of-for she "to hear would seriously incline," cuit could be had at the Rose, for love or money. The fit, however, wore off in time; and he began again to follow the advice of his neighbours, and to look out for a wife, up street and down; whilst at each extremity a fair object presented herself, from neither of whom he had the slightest reason to dread a repetition of the repulse which he had experienced from the blooming widow. The down-street lady was a widow also, the portly, comely relict of our drunken village blacksmith, who, in spite of her joy at her first husband's death, and an old spite at mine host of the Rose, to whose good ale and good company she was wont to ascribe most of the aberrations of the deceased, began to find her shop, her journeymen, and her eight children (six unruly obstreperous pickles of boys, and two tom-boys of girls,) rather more than a lone woman could manage, and to sigh for a helpmate to ease her of her cares, collect the boys at night, see the girls to school of a morning, break the larger imps of running away to revels and fairs, and the smaller fry of birds'nesting and orchard-robbing, and bear a part in the lectures and chastisements, which she deemed necessary to preserve the young rebels from the bad end which she predicted to them twenty times a day. Master Sims was the coadjutor on whom she had inwardly pitched; and, accordingly, she threw out broad hints to that effect, every time she had encountered him, which, in the course of her search for boys and girls, who were sure to be missing at school-time and bed-time, happened pretty often; and Mr. Sims was far too gallant and too much in the habit of assenting to listen unmoved; for really the widow was a fine, tall, comely woman; and the whispers, and smiles, and hand-pressings, when they happened to meet, were becoming very tender; and his admonitions and head-shakings, addressed to the young crew (who, nevertheless, all liked him) quite fatherly. This was his down-street flame. The rival lady was Miss Lydia Day, the carpenter's sister; a slim, upright maiden, not remarkable for beauty, and not quite so young as she had been, who, on inheriting a small annuity from the mistress with whom she had spent the best of her days, retired to her native village to live on her means. A genteel, demure, quiet personage, was Miss Lydia Day; much addicted to snuff and green tea, and not averse from a little gentle scandal and put on her best silk, and her best simper, and lighted up her faded complexion into something approaching to a blush, whenever he came to visit her. And this was Master Sims's up-street love. So stood affairs at the Rose when the day of the Maying arrived; and the double flirtation, which, however dexterously managed, must have been, sometimes, one would think, rather inconvenient to the inamorato, proved on this occasion extremely useful. Each of the fair ladies contributed her aid to the festival; Miss Lydia by tying up sentimental garlands for the May-house, and scolding the carpenters into diligence in the erection of the booths; the widow by giving her whole bevy of boys and girls a holiday, and turning them loose on the neighbourhood to collect flowers as they could. Very useful auxiliaries were these light foragers; they scoured the country far and near-irresistible mendicants!-pardonable thieves!-coming to no harm, poor children, except that little George got a black eye in tumbling from the top of an acacia tree at the park, and that Sam (he's a sad pickle is Sam!) narrowly escaped a horsewhipping from the head gardener at the Hall, who detected a bunch of his new rhododendron, the only plant in the country, forming the very crown and centre of the May-pole. Little harm did they do, poor children, with all their pilfery; and when they returned, covered with their flowery loads, like the Mayday figure called "Jack of the Green," they worked at the Garlands and the May-houses, as none but children ever do work, putting all their young life and their untiring spirit of noise and motion into their pleasant labour. Oh, the din of that building! Talk of the tower of Babel! that was a quiet piece of masonry compared to the May-house of Whitley-wood, with its walls of leaves and flowers-and its canvass booths at either end for refreshments and musicians. Never was known more joyous note of preparation. The morning rose more quietly-I had almost said more dully-and promised ill for the fête. The sky was gloomy, the wind cold, and the green filled as slowly as a balloon seems to do when one is watching it. The entertainments of the day were to begin with a cricket-match (two elevens to be chosen on the ground), and the wickets pitched at twelve o'clock precisely. Twelve o'clock camebut no cricketers-except, indeed, some two or three punctual and impatient gentlemen; |