1827.] Whitsun-Eoe. 47 



are so overhung by roses and lilies, and such gay encroachers rso over-run 

 by convolvolus, and heart's-ease, and mignonette, and other sweet strag- 

 glers, that, except to edge through them occasionally, for the purposes of 

 planting, or weeding, or watering, there might as well be no paths at all. 

 Nobody thinks of walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a 

 delicate and trackless step, like a swan through the water; and we, its 

 two-footed denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and 

 go out for a walk towards sun-set, just as if we had not been sitting in the 

 open air all day. 



What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street ! Saturday 

 night is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this is Whitsun 

 Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London journeymen 

 and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit their families. 

 A short and precious holiday, the happiest and liveliest of any ; for even 

 the gambols and merrymakings of Christmas offer but a poor enjoyment, 

 compared with the rural diversions, the Mayings, revels, and cricket- 

 matches of Whitsuntide. 



We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on Monday, not played, by 

 the men, who, since their misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are, I am 

 sorry to say, rather chap-fallen, but by the boys, who, zealous for the 

 honour of their parish, and headed by their bold leader, Ben Kirby, 

 marched in a body to our antagonist's ground the Sunday after our melan- 

 choly defeat, challenged the boys of that proud hamlet, and beat them out 

 and out on the spot. Never was a more signal victory. Our boys enjoyed 

 this triumph with so little moderation that it had like to have produced a 

 very tragical catastrophe. The captain of the Beech-hift youngsters, a 

 capital bowler, by name Amos Stokes, enraged past all bearing by the 

 crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball at Ben Kirby with so true an aim, 

 that if that sagacious leader had not warily ducked his head when he saw 

 it coming, there would probably have been a coroner's inquest on the case, 

 and Amos Stokes would have been tried for manslaughter. He let fly with 

 such vengeance, that the cricket-ball was found embedded in a bank of 

 clay five hundred yards off, as if it had been a cannon shot. Tom Coper 

 and Farmer Thackum, the umpires, both say that they never saw so 

 tremendous a ball. If Amos Stokes live to be a man (I mean to say if he 

 be not hanged first), he'll be a pretty player. He is coming here on 

 Monday with his party to play the return match, the umpires having 

 respectively engaged Farmer Thackum that Amos shall keep the peace, 

 Tom Coper that Ben shall give no unnecessary or wanton provocation 

 a nicely-worded and lawyer-like clause, and one that proves that Tom 

 Coper hath his doubts of the young gentleman's discretion ; and, of a 

 truth, so have I. I would not be Ben Kirby's surety, cautiously as the 

 security is worded, no ! not for a white double dahlia, the present object 

 of my ambition. 



This village of our's is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and all 

 the church bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if to call 

 them together. I must try to give some notion of the various figures. 



First, there is a groupe suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door cus- 

 tomers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table smoking 

 and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's fiddle. Next', 

 a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are surrounding 

 the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their ball is mending by 

 Master Keep himself, under the joint superintendence of Ben Kirby and 



